Paris is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The Paris region receives 45 million tourists annually, 60% of whom are foreign visitors.[13] The city and region contain numerous iconic landmarks, world-famous institutions and popular parks.

Etymology

The name Paris derives from that of its inhabitants, the Gaulish tribe known as the Parisii. The city was called Lutetia (more fully, Lutetia Parisiorum, "Lutetia of the Parisii"), during the first- to sixth-century Roman occupation, but during the reign of Julian the Apostate (360–363) the city was renamed Paris.[14]

Others consider that the name of the Parisii tribe comes from the Celtic Gallic word parisio meaning "the working people" or "the craftsmen."[15] Since the early 20th century, Paris has been known as Paname ([panam]) in French slang (Moi j'suis d'Paname, i.e. "I'm from Paname"), a slang name that has been regaining favor with young people in recent years.[citation needed]

Paris has many nicknames, but its most famous is "La Ville-Lumière" ("The City of Light"),[16] a name it owes first to its fame as a centre of education and ideas during the Age of Enlightenment, and later to its early adoption of street lighting.[17]

Paris' inhabitants are known in English as "Parisians" and in French as Parisiens ([paʁizjɛ̃](listen)). Parisians are often pejoratively called Parigots ([paʁiɡo](listen)), a term first used in 1900[18] by those living outside the Paris region, but now the term may be considered endearing by Parisians themselves.

See Wiktionary for the name of Paris in various languages other than English and French.

History

Beginnings

The earliest archaeological signs of permanent habitation in the Paris area date from around 4200 BC.[19] The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the CelticSenones, inhabited the area near the river Seine from around 250 BC[20]. The Romans conquered the Paris basin in 52 BC,[19] with a permanent settlement by the end of the same century on the Left BankSainte Geneviève Hill and the Île de la Cité. The Gallo-Roman town was originally called Lutetia, but later Gallicised to Lutèce. It expanded greatly over the following centuries, becoming a prosperous city with a forum, palaces, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre.[21] The collapse of the Roman empire and the fifth-century Germanic invasions sent the city into a period of decline. By 400 AD, Lutèce, by then largely abandoned by its inhabitants, was little more than a garrison town entrenched into the hastily fortified central island.[19] The city reclaimed its original appellation of "Paris" towards the end of the Roman occupation. The Frankish king Clovis I established Paris as his capital in 508.

Throughout these events, cholera epidemics in 1832 and 1849 ravaged the population of Paris; the 1832 epidemic alone claimed 20,000 of the population of 650,000.[29]

The greatest development in Paris's history began with the Industrial Revolution creation of a network of railways that brought an unprecedented flow of migrants to the capital from the 1840s. The city's largest transformation came with the 1852 Second Empire under Napoleon III; his préfetHaussmannlevelled entire districts of Paris' narrow, winding medieval streets to create the network of wide avenues and neo-classical façades that still make much of modern Paris; the reason for this transformation was twofold, as not only did the creation of wide boulevards beautify and sanitize the capital, it also facilitated the effectiveness of troops and artillery against any further uprisings and barricades that Paris was so famous for.[30]

The Second Empire ended in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), and a besieged Paris under heavy bombardment surrendered on the 28th of January 1871. The discontent of Paris' populace with the new armistice-signing government seated in Versailles resulted in the creation of a Parisian "Commune" government, supported by an army in large part created from members of the City's former National Guard, that would both continue resistance against the Prussians and oppose the government "Versaillais" army. The result was a bloody Semaine Sanglante that resulted in the death, many by summary execution, of roughly 20,000 "communards" before the fighting ended on May 28, 1871.[31] The ease at which the Versaillais army overtook Paris owed much to Baron Haussmann's earlier renovations.

Twentieth century

During World War I, Paris was at the forefront of the war effort, having been spared a German invasion by the French and British victory at the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. In 1918–1919, it was the scene of Allied victory parades and peace negotiations. In the inter-war period Paris was famed for its cultural and artistic communities and its nightlife. The city became a gathering place of artists from around the world, from exiled Russian composer Stravinsky and Spanish painters Picasso and Dalí to American writer Hemingway.[33] On 14 June 1940, five weeks after the start of the Battle of France, Paris fell to German occupation forces, who remained there until the city was liberated in August 1944 after a resistance uprising, two and a half months after the Normandy invasion.[34] Central Paris endured World War II practically unscathed, as there were no strategic targets for Allied bombers (train stations in central Paris are terminal stations; major factories were located in the suburbs). Also, German General von Choltitz did not destroy all Parisian monuments before any German retreat, as ordered by Adolf Hitler, who had visited the city in 1940.[35]

In the post-war era, Paris experienced its largest development since the end of the Belle Époque in 1914. The suburbs began to expand considerably, with the construction of large social estates known as cités and the beginning of the business district La Défense. A comprehensive express subway network, the RER, was built to complement the Métro and serve the distant suburbs, while a network of freeways was developed in the suburbs, centred on the Périphérique expressway circling around the city.[36][37][38]

Since the 1970s, many inner suburbs of Paris (especially the north and eastern ones) have experienced deindustrialization, and the once-thriving cités have gradually become ghettos for immigrants and oases of unemployment.[39][40] At the same time, the city of Paris (within its Périphérique expressway) and the western and southern suburbs have successfully shifted their economic base from traditional manufacturing to high-value-added services and high-tech manufacturing, generating great wealth for their residents whose per capita income is among the highest in Europe.[41][42][43] The resulting widening social gap between these two areas has led to periodic unrest since the mid-1980s, such as the 2005 riots which largely concentrated in the north-eastern suburbs.[44]

Twenty-first century

In order to alleviate social tensions in the inner suburbs and revitalise the metropolitan economy of Paris, several plans are currently underway. The office of Secretary of State for the Development of the Capital Region was created in March 2008 within the French government. Its office holder, Christian Blanc, is in charge of overseeing President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans for the creation of an integrated Grand Paris ("Greater Paris") metropolitan authority (see Administration section below), as well as the extension of the subway network to cope with the renewed growth of population in Paris and its suburbs, and various economic development projects to boost the metropolitan economy such as the creation of a world-class technology and scientific cluster and university campus on the Saclay plateau in the southern suburbs.

In parallel, President Sarkozy also launched in 2008 an international urban and architectural competition for the future development of metropolitan Paris. Ten teams which bring together architects, urban planners, geographers, landscape architects will offer their vision for building a Paris metropolis of the 21st century in the Kyoto Protocol era and make a prospective diagnosis for Paris and its suburbs that will define future developments in Greater Paris for the next 40 years. The goal is not only to build an environmentally sustainable metropolis but also to integrate the inner suburbs with the central City of Paris through large-scale urban planning operations and iconic architectural projects.

Meanwhile, in an effort to boost the global economic image of metropolitan Paris, several skyscrapers (300 m (984 ft) and higher) have been approved since 2006 in the business district of La Défense, to the west of the city proper, and are scheduled to be completed by the early 2010s. Paris authorities also made public they are planning to authorise the construction of skyscrapers within the city proper by relaxing the cap on building height for the first time since the construction of the Tour Montparnasse in the early 1970s.

Geography

Paris is located in the north-bending arc of the river Seine and includes two islands, the Île Saint-Louis and the larger Île de la Cité, which form the oldest part of the city. Overall, the city is relatively flat, and the lowest elevation is 35 m (115 ft) above sea level. Paris has several prominent hills, of which the highest is Montmartre at 130 m (427 ft).[45]

Paris, excluding the outlying parks of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, covers an oval measuring 86.928 km2 (34 sq mi) in area.[citation needed] The city's last major annexation of outlying territories in 1860 not only gave it its modern form but created the twenty clockwise-spiralling arrondissements (municipal boroughs). From the 1860 area of 78 km2 (30 sq mi), the city limits were expanded marginally to 86.9 km2 (34 sq mi) in the 1920s. In 1929, the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes forest parks were officially annexed to the city, bringing its area to the present 105.39 km2 (41 sq mi)[46].

Paris has warm and pleasant summers with average high temperatures of 25 °C (77 °F) and low of 15 °C (59 °F). Winter is chilly, but temperature is around 3 °C (37 °F) to 8 °C (46 °F), and rarely falls below the freezing point. Spring and autumn have mild to occasionally warm days and cool evenings. Rain falls throughout the year, and although Paris is not a very rainy city, it is known for sudden showers. Average annual precipitation is 642 mm (25 in) with light rainfall fairly distributed throughout the year. Snowfall is rare, but the city sometimes sees light snow or flurries without accumulation. The highest recorded temperature is 40.4 °C (105 °F) on 28 July 1948, and the lowest is a −23.9 °C (−11 °F) on 10 December 1879.[47]

Cityscape

Architecture

Much of contemporary Paris is the result of the vast mid-nineteenth century urban remodelling. For centuries, the city had been a labyrinth of narrow streets and half-timber houses, but, beginning in 1852, the Baron Haussmann's urbanisation program involved leveling entire quarters to make way for wide avenues lined with neo-classical stone buildings of bourgeoisie standing. Most of this 'new' Paris is the Paris we see today. The building code has seen few changes since, and the Second Empire plans are in many cases still followed. The "alignement" law is still in place, which regulates building facades of new constructions according to a pre-defined street width. A building's height is limited according to the width of the streets it lines, and under the regulation, it is difficult to get an approval to build a taller building.

Many of Paris's important institutions are located outside the city limits. The financial (La Défense) business district, the main food wholesale market (Rungis), schools (École Polytechnique, HEC, ESSEC, INSEAD), research laboratories (in Saclay or Évry), the largest stadium (the Stade de France), and government offices (Ministry of Transportation) are located in the city's suburbs.

Districts and historical centres

City of Paris

Place de la Bastille (4th, 11th and 12th arrondissements, right bank) is a district of great historical significance, not only for Paris, but for France, too. Because of its symbolic value, the square has often been a site of political demonstrations.

Champs-Élysées (8th arrondissement, right bank) is a seventeenth century garden-promenade-turned-avenue connecting the Concorde and Arc de Triomphe. It is one of the many tourist attractions and a major shopping street of Paris.

Place de la Concorde (8th arrondissement, right bank) is at the foot of the Champs-Élysées, built as the "Place Louis XV", site of the infamous guillotine. The Egyptian obelisk is Paris' "oldest monument". On this place, on either side of the Rue Royale, there are two identical stone buildings: The eastern one houses the French Naval Ministry, the western the luxurious Hôtel de Crillon. Nearby Place Vendôme is famous for its fashionable and deluxe hotels (Hôtel Ritz and Hôtel de Vendôme) and its jewellers. Many famous fashion designers have had their salons in the square.

Les Halles (1st arrondissement, right bank) was formerly Paris' central meat and produce market, and, since the late 1970s, a major shopping centre around an important metro connection station (Châtelet-Les Halles, the biggest in Europe). The past Les Halles was destroyed in 1971 and replaced by the Forum des Halles. The central market of Paris, the biggest wholesale food market in the world, was transferred to Rungis, in the southern suburbs.

Le Marais (3rd and 4th arrondissements) is a trendy Right Bank district. It is architecturally very well-preserved, and some of the oldest houses and buildings of Paris can be found there. It is a very culturally open place.

Montmartre (18th arrondissement, right bank) is a historic area on the Butte, home to the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. Montmartre has always had a history with artists and has many studios and cafés of many great artists in that area.

In the Paris area

La Défense (straddling the communes of Courbevoie, Puteaux, and Nanterre, 2.5 km (2 mi) west of the city proper) is a key suburb of Paris and is one of the largest business centres in the world. Built at the western end of a westward extension of Paris' historical axis from the Champs-Élysées, La Défense consists mainly of business high-rises. Initiated by the French government in 1958, the district hosts 3,500,000 m2 (37,673,686 sq ft) of offices, making it the largest district in Europe specifically developed for business. The Grande Arche (Great Arch) of la Défense, which houses a part of the French Transports Minister's headquarters, ends the central Esplanade, around which the district is organised.

Water and sanitation

Paris in its early history had only the Seine and Bièvre rivers for water. Later forms of irrigation were a first-century Roman aqueduct from southerly Wissous (later left to ruin); sources from the Right bank hills from the late 11th century; from the fifteenth century, an aqueduct built roughly along the path of the abandoned Wissous aqueduct; and, from 1809, the canal de l'Ourcq, providing Paris with water from less-polluted rivers to the northeast of the capital. Paris would have its first constant and plentiful source of drinkable water only from the late 19th century: From 1857, the civil engineer Eugène Belgrand, under Napoleon III's PréfetHaussmann, oversaw the construction of a series of new aqueducts that brought sources from locations all around the city to several reservoirs built atop the Capital's highest points of elevation. From then on, the new reservoir system became Paris' principal source of drinking water, and the remains of the old system, pumped into lower levels of the same reservoirs, were from then used for the cleaning of Paris' streets. This system is still a major part of Paris' modern water supply network.

Paris has over 2,400 km of underground passageways[49] dedicated to the evacuation of Paris' liquid wastes. Most of these date from the late 19th century, a result of the combined plans of the PréfetBaron Haussmann and the civil engineer Eugène Belgrand to improve the then-very unsanitary conditions in the Capital. Maintained by a round-the-clock service since their construction, only a small percentage of Paris' sewer réseau has needed complete renovation. The entire Paris network of sewers and collectors has been managed since the late 20th century by a computerised network system, known under the acronym "G.A.AS.PAR", that controls all of Paris' water distribution, even the flow of the river Seine through the capital.[citation needed]

Cemeteries

Paris' main cemetery was located to its outskirts on its Left Bank from the beginning of its history[citation needed], but this changed with the rise of Catholicism and the construction of churches towards the city-centre, many of them having adjoining burial grounds for use by their parishes. Generations of a growing city population soon filled these cemeteries to overflowing, creating sometimes very unsanitary conditions: Condemned from 1786, the contents of all Paris' parish cemeteries were transferred to a renovated section of Paris' then suburban stone mines outside the Left Bank "Porte d'Enfer" city gate (today 14th arrondissement's place Denfert-Rochereau). After a tentative creation of several smaller suburban cemeteries, Napoleon Bonaparte provided a more definitive solution in the creation of three massive Parisian cemeteries to the outside of the city tax wall named Wall of the Farmers-General ; Open from 1804, these were the cemeteries of Père Lachaise, Montmartre, Montparnasse, and later Passy.

When Paris annexed all communes to the inside of its much larger ring of suburban fortifications in 1860, its cemeteries were once again within its city walls. New suburban cemeteries were created in the early 20th century: The largest of these are the Cimetière Parisien de Saint-Ouen, the Cimetière Parisien de Bobigny-Pantin, the Cimetière Parisien d'Ivry, and the Cimetière Parisien de Bagneux.

The Élysées-Montmartre, much reduced from its original size, is a concert hall today. The New Morning is one of few Parisian clubs still holding jazz concerts, but the same also specialises in 'indie' music. In more recent times, the Le Zénith hall in Paris' La Villette quarter and a "parc-omnisports" stadium in Bercy serve as large-scale rock concert halls.

Parisians tend to share the same movie-going trends as many of the world's global cities, that is to say with a dominance of Hollywood-generated film entertainment. French cinema comes a close second, with major directors (réalisateurs) such as Claude Lelouch, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, and Luc Besson, and the more slapstick/popular genre with director Claude Zidi as an example. European and Asian films are also widely shown and appreciated. A specialty of Paris is its very large network of small movie theatres: on a given week, the movie fan has the choice between around 300 old or new movies from all over the world.

Many of Paris' concert/dance halls were transformed into movie theatres when the media became popular from the 1930s. Later, most of the largest cinemas were divided into multiple, smaller rooms: Paris' largest cinema today is by far le Grand Rex theatre with 2,800 seats, whereas other cinemas all have fewer than 1,000 seats. There is now a trend toward modern multiplexes that contain more than 10 or 20 screens.

Cuisine

Paris' culinary reputation has its base in the diverse origins of its inhabitants. In its beginnings, it owed much to the 19th-century organisation of a railway system that had Paris as a centre, making the capital a focal point for immigration from France's many different regions and gastronomical cultures. This reputation continues through today in a cultural diversity that has since spread to an worldwide level thanks to Paris' continued reputation for culinary finesse and further immigration from increasingly distant climes.

Paris from the eleventh century was a popular destination for traders, students and religious pilgrimages, but its 'tourist industry' began on a large scale only with the 19th-century appearance of rail travel, namely from the state's organisation of France's rail network, with Paris at its centre, from 1848. Among Paris' first mass attractions drawing international interest were the above-mentioned Expositions Universelles that were the origin of Paris' many monuments, namely the Eiffel Tower from 1889. These, in addition to the capital's Second Empire embellishments, did much to make the city itself the attraction it is today.

Paris' museums and monuments are among its highest-esteemed attractions; tourism has motivated both the city and national governments to create new ones. The city's most prized museum, the Louvre, welcomes over 8 million visitors a year, being by far the world's most-visited art museum. The city's cathedrals are another main attraction: Its Notre Dame de Paris and the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur receive 12 million and eight million visitors, respectively. The Eiffel Tower, by far Paris' most famous monument, averages over six million visitors per year and more than 200 million since its construction. Disneyland Paris is a major tourist attraction not only for visitors to Paris but for visitors to the rest of Europe as well, with 14.5 million visitors in 2007.

Many of Paris' once-popular local establishments have come to cater to the tastes and expectations of tourists, rather than local patrons. Le Lido, the Moulin Rouge cabaret-dancehall, for example, are a staged dinner theatre spectacle, a dance display that was once but one aspect of the cabaret's former atmosphere. All of the establishment's former social or cultural elements, such as its ballrooms and gardens, are gone today. Much of Paris' hotel, restaurant and night entertainment trades have become heavily dependent on tourism.

Economy

With a 2008 GDP of €552.7 billion[8] (US$813.4 billion), the Paris region has one of the highest GDPs in Europe, making it an engine of the global economy: Were it a country, it would rank as the seventeenth-largest economy in the world, almost as large as the Dutch economy.[50] The Paris Region is France's premier centre of economic activity: While its population accounted for 18.8% of the total population of metropolitan France in 2008,[51] its GDP accounted for 28.9% of metropolitan France's GDP.[8] Activity in the Paris urban area, though diverse, does not have a leading specialised industry (such as Los Angeles with entertainment industries or London and New York with financial industries in addition to their other activities). Recently, the Paris economy has been shifting towards high-value-added service industries (finance, IT services, etc.) and high-tech manufacturing (electronics, optics, aerospace, etc).

The Paris region's most intense economic activity through the central Hauts-de-Seinedépartement and suburban La Défense business district places Paris' economic centre to the west of the city, in a triangle between the Opéra Garnier, La Défense, and the Val de Seine. Paris' administrative borders have little consequences on the limits of its economic activity: Although most workers commute from the suburbs to work in the city, many commute from the city to work in the suburbs. Although the Paris economy is largely dominated by services, it remains an important manufacturing powerhouse of Europe, especially in industrial sectors such as automobiles, aeronautics, and electronics. Over recent decades, the local economy has moved towards high-value-added activities, in particular business services.

The 1999 census indicated that, of the 5,089,170 persons employed in the Paris urban area, 16.5% worked in business services, 13.0% in commerce (retail and wholesale trade), 12.3% in manufacturing, 10.0% in public administrations and defence, 8.7% in health services, 8.2% in transportation and communications, 6.6% in education, and the remaining 24.7% in many other economic sectors. In the manufacturing sector, the largest employers were the electronic and electrical industry (17.9% of the total manufacturing workforce in 1999) and the publishing and printing industry (14.0% of the total manufacturing workforce), with the remaining 68.1% of the manufacturing workforce distributed among many other industries. Tourism and tourist related services employ 6.2% of Paris' workforce, and 3.6% of all workers within the Paris Region.[52]Unemployment in the Paris "immigrant ghettos" ranges from 20 to 40%, according to varying sources.[53]

Demographics

Demographics within the Paris Region(according to the INSEE 2006 census)

The population of the city of Paris was 2,125,246 at the 1999 census, lower than its historical peak of 2.9 million in 1921. The city's population loss mirrors the experience of most other core cities in the developed world that have not expanded their boundaries. The principal factors in the process are a significant decline in household size, and a dramatic migration of residents to the suburbs between 1962 and 1975. Factors in the migration include de-industrialisation, high rent, the gentrification of many inner quarters, the transformation of living space into offices, and greater affluence among working families. The city's population loss was one of the most severe among international municipalities and the largest for any that had achieved more than 2,000,000 residents. These losses are generally seen as negative for the city; the city administration is trying to reverse them with some success, as the population estimate of July 2004 showed a population increase for the first time since 1954, reaching a total of 2,144,700 inhabitants.

Density

Paris is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Its density, excluding the outlying woodland parks of Boulogne and Vincennes, was 24,448 inhabitants per square kilometre (63,320/sq mi) in the 1999 official census, which could be compared only with some Asianmegapolis. Even including the two woodland areas its population density was 20,164 inhabitants per square kilometre (52,224.5/sq mi), the fifth-most-densely populated commune in France following Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, Vincennes, Levallois-Perret, and Saint-Mandé, all of which border the city proper. The most sparsely populated quarters are the western and central office and administration-focussed arrondissements. The city's population is densest in the northern and eastern arrondissements; the 11th arrondissement had a density of 40,672 inhabitants per square kilometre (105,340/sq mi) in 1999, and some of the same arrondissement's eastern quarters had densities close to 100,000/km² (260,000/sq mi) in the same year.

Paris agglomeration

The city of Paris covers an area much smaller than the urban area of which it is the core. At present, Paris' real urbanisation, defined by the pôle urbain (urban area) statistical area, covers 2,723 km2 (1,051 sq mi),[54] or an area about 26 times larger than the city itself. The administration of Paris' urban growth is divided between itself and its surrounding départements: Paris' closest ring of three adjoining departments, or petite couronne ("small ring") are fully saturated with urban growth, and the ring of four departments outside of these, the grande couronne départements, are only covered in their inner regions by Paris' urbanisation. These eight départements form the larger administrative Île-de-France région; most of this region is filled, and overextended in places, by the Paris aire urbaine.

The Paris agglomeration has shown a steady rate of growth since the end of the late 16th century French Wars of Religion, save brief setbacks during the French Revolution and World War II[citation needed]. Suburban development has accelerated in recent years: With an estimated total of 11.4 million inhabitants for 2005, the Île-de-Francerégion shows a rate of growth double that of the 1990s.[55][56]

Immigration

By law, French censuses do not ask questions regarding ethnicity or religion, but do gather information concerning one's country of birth. From this it is still possible to determine that the Paris and its aire urbaine (metropolitan area) is one of the most multi-cultural in Europe: At the 1999 census, 19.4% of its total population was born outside of metropolitan France.[57] At the same census, 4.2% of the Paris aire urbaine's population were recent immigrants (people who had immigrated to France between 1990 and 1999),[58] in their majority from Asia and Africa.[59] 37% of all immigrants in France live in the Paris region.[53]

The first wave of international migration to Paris started as early as in 1820 with the arrivals of German peasants fleeing an agricultural crisis in their homeland. Several waves of immigration followed continuously until today: Italians and central European Jews during the 19th century; Russians after the revolution of 1917 and Armenians fleeing genocide in the Ottoman Empire; colonial citizens during World War I and later; Poles between the two world wars; Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, and North Africans from the 1950s to the 1970s; North African Jews after the independence of those countries; Africans and Asians since then.[60] Today around 375,000 Jews live in the Paris metropolitan area.[61]

Administration

Paris, its administrative limits unchanged since 1860 (save for the addition of two large parks), is one of a few cities that has not evolved politically with its real demographic growth; this issue is at present being discussed in plans for a "Grand Paris" (Greater Paris) that will extend Paris' administrative limits to embrace much more of its urban tissue.[62]

City government

Paris has been a commune (municipality) since 1834 (and also briefly between 1790 and 1795). At the 1790 division (during the French Revolution) of France into communes, and again in 1834, Paris was a city only half its modern size, but, in 1860, it annexed bordering communes, some entirely, to create the new administrative map of twenty municipal arrondissements the city still has today. These municipal subdivisions describe a clockwise spiral outward from its most central, the 1st arrondissement.

In 1790, Paris became the préfecture (seat) of the Seinedépartement, which covered much of the Paris region. In 1968, it was split into four smaller ones: The city of Paris became a distinct département of its own, retaining the Seine's departmental number of 75 (originating from the Seine département's position in France's alphabetical list), while three new départements of Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne were created and given the numbers 92, 93, and 94, respectively. The result of this division is that today Paris' limits as a département are exactly those of its limits as a commune, a situation unique in France.

Municipal offices

Each of Paris' 20 arrondissements has a directly elected council (conseil d'arrondissement), which, in turn, elects an arrondissement mayor. A selection of members from each arrondissement council form the Council of Paris (conseil de Paris), which, in turn, elects the mayor of Paris.

In medieval times, Paris was governed by a merchant-elected municipality whose head was the provost of the merchants. In addition to regulating city commerce, the provost of the merchants was responsible for some civic duties such as the guarding of city walls and the cleaning of city streets. The creation of the provost of Paris from the thirteenth century diminished the merchant Provost's responsibilities and powers considerably. A direct representative of the king, in a role resembling somewhat the préfet of later years, the Provost (prévôt) of Paris oversaw the application and execution of law and order in the city and its surrounding prévôté (county) from his office in the Grand Châtelet. Many functions from both provost offices were transferred to the office of the crown-appointed lieutenant general of police upon its creation in 1667. For centuries, the prévôt and magistrates of the Châtelet clashed with the administrators of the Hôtel de Ville over jurisdiction;[63] the latter notably included the quartiniers, each of whom was responsible for one of the sixteen quartiers (which were in turn divided into four cinquantaines, each with its cinquantainier, and those in turn were divided into dizaines, administered by dizainiers):

All of these men were in principle elected by the local bourgeois. At any one time, therefore, 336 men had shared administrative responsibility for street cleaning and maintenance, for public health, law, and order. The quartiniers maintained the official lists of bourgeois de Paris, ran local elections, could impose fines for breaches of the bylaws, and had a role in tax assessment. They met at the Hôtel de Ville to confer on matters of citywide importance and each year selected eight of "the most notable inhabitants of the quarter," who together with other local officials would elect the city council.[64]

Even though in the course of the eighteenth century these elections became purely ceremonial, choosing candidates already selected by the royal government, the memory of genuine municipal independence remained strong: "The Hôtel de Ville continued to bulk large in the awareness of bourgeois Parisians, its importance extending far beyond its real role in city government."[65]

Paris' last Prévôt des marchands was assassinated the afternoon of the 14th of July 1789 uprising that was the French RevolutionStorming of the Bastille. Paris became an official "commune" from the creation of the administrative division on 14 December the same year, and its provisional "Paris commune" revolutionary municipality was replaced with the city's first municipal constitution and government from 9 October 1790.[66] Through the turmoil of the 1794 Thermidorian Reaction, it became apparent that revolutionary Paris' political independence was a threat to any governing power: The office of mayor was abolished the same year, and its municipal council one year later.

Although the municipal council was recreated in 1834, for most of the 19th and 20th centuries Paris, along with the larger Seinedépartement of which it was a centre, was under the direct control of the state-appointed préfet of the Seine, in charge of general affairs there; the state-appointed Prefect of Police was in charge of police in the same jurisdiction. Save for a few brief occasions, the city did not have a mayor until 1977, and the Paris Prefecture of Police is still under state control today.

Despite its dual existence as commune and département, Paris has a single council to govern both; the Council of Paris, presided by the mayor of Paris, meets either as a municipal council (conseil municipal) or as a departmental council (conseil général) depending on the issue to be debated.

Paris' modern administrative organisation still retains some traces of the former Seine département jurisdiction. The Prefecture of Police (also directing Paris' fire brigades), for example, has still a jurisdiction extending to Paris' petite couronne of bordering three départements for some operations such as fire protection or rescue operations, and is still directed by France's national government. Paris has no municipal police force, although it does have its own brigade of traffic wardens.

Capital of the Île-de-France région

As part of a 1961 nation-wide administrative effort to consolidate regional economies, Paris as a département became the capital of the new région of the District of Paris, renamed the Île-de-Francerégion in 1976. It encompasses the Paris département and its seven closest départements. Its regional council members, since 1986, have been chosen by direct elections. The prefect of the Paris département (who served as the prefect of the Seine département before 1968) is also prefect of the Île-de-France région, although the office lost much of its power following the creation of the office of mayor of Paris in 1977.

Intercommunality

Few of the above changes have taken into account Paris' existence as an agglomeration. Unlike in most of France's major urban areas such as Lille and Lyon, there is no intercommunal entity in the Paris urban area, no intercommunal council treating the problems of the region's dense urban core as a whole; Paris' alienation of its suburbs is indeed a problem today, and considered by many to be the main causes of civil unrest such as the suburban riots in 2005. A direct result of these unfortunate events is propositions for a more efficient metropolitan structure to cover the city of Paris and some of the suburbs, ranging from a socialist idea of a loose "metropolitan conference" (conférence métropolitaine) to the right-wing idea of a more integrated Grand Paris ("Greater Paris").

Education

In the early ninth century, the emperor Charlemagne mandated all churches to give lessons in reading, writing and basic arithmetic to their parishes, and cathedrals to give a higher-education in the finer arts of language, physics, music, and theology; at that time, Paris was already one of France's major cathedral towns and beginning its rise to fame as a scholastic centre. By the early 13th century, the Île de la CitéNotre-Dame cathedral school had many famous teachers, and the controversial teachings of some of these led to the creation of a separate Left-Bank Sainte-Genevieve University that would become the centre of Paris' scholastic Latin Quarter best represented by the Sorbonne university.

Twelve centuries later, education in Paris and the Paris region (Île-de-Francerégion) employs approximately 330,000 persons, 170,000 of whom are teachers and professors teaching approximately 2.9 million children and students in around 9,000 primary, secondary, and higher education schools and institutions.[67]

Higher-education

As of the academic year 2004-2005, the Paris Region's 17 public universities, with its 359,749 registered students,[68] is the largest concentration of university students in Europe.[69] The Paris Region's prestigious grandes écoles and scores of university-independent private and public schools have an additional 240,778 registered students, that, together with the university population, creates a grand total of 600,527 students in higher education that year.[68]

Universities

The cathedral of Notre-Dame was the first centre of higher-education before the creation of the University of Paris. The universitas was chartered by King Philip Augustus in 1200, as a corporation granting teachers (and their students) the right to rule themselves independently from crown law and taxes. At the time, many classes were held in open air. Non-Parisian students and teachers would stay in hostels, or "colleges", created for the boursiers coming from afar. Already famous by the 13th century, the University of Paris had students from all of Europe. Paris' Rive Gauchescholastic centre, dubbed "Latin Quarter" as classes were taught in Latin then, would eventually regroup around the college created by Robert de Sorbon from 1257, the Collège de Sorbonne. The University of Paris in the 19th century had six faculties: law, science, medicine, pharmaceutical studies, literature, and theology. Following the 1968 student riots, there was an extensive reform of the University of Paris, in an effort to disperse the centralised student body. The following year, the former unique University of Paris was split between thirteen autonomous universities ("Paris I" to "Paris XIII") located throughout the City of Paris and its suburbs. Each of these universities inherited only some of the departments of the old University of Paris, and are not generalist universities. Paris I, II, V, and X, inherited the Law School; Paris V inherited the School of Medicine as well; Paris VI and VII inherited the scientific departments; etc.

Libraries

The American Library in Paris opened in 1920. It is a part of a private, non-profit organization.[72] The modern library originated from cases of books sent by the American Library Association to U.S. soldiers in France.[73] A incarnation existed in the 1850s.[74]

Transportation

Paris has been building its transportation system throughout history and continuous improvements are on-going. The Syndicat des transports d'Île-de-France[75] (STIF), formerly Syndicat des transports parisiens (STP).

The members of this syndicate are the Ile-de-France region and the eight departments of this region. The syndicate coordinates public transport and contracts it out to the RATP (operating 654 bus lines, the Métro, three tramway lines, and sections of the RER), the SNCF (operating suburban rails, a tramway line and the other sections of the RER) and the Optile consortium of private operators managing 1,070 minor bus lines.

The Métro is Paris' most important transportation system. The system, with 300 stations (384 stops) connected by 214 km (133.0 mi) of rails, comprises 16 lines, identified by numbers from 1 to 14, with two minor lines, 3bis and 7bis, so numbered because they used to be branches of their respective original lines, and only later became independent. In October 1998, the new line 14 was inaugurated after a 70-year hiatus in inaugurating fully new métro lines. Because of the short distance between stations on the Métro network, lines were too slow to be extended further into the suburbs, as is the case in most other cities. As such, an additional express network, the RER, has been created since the 1960s to connect more-distant parts of the urban area. The RER consists in the integration of modern city-centre subway and pre-existing suburban rail. Nowadays, the RER network comprises five lines, 257 stops and 587 km (365 mi) of rails.

The city is also the most important hub of France's motorway network, and is surrounded by three orbital freeways: the Périphérique, which follows the approximate path of 19th-century fortifications around Paris, the A86 motorway in the inner suburbs, and finally the Francilienne motorway in the outer suburbs. Paris has an extensive road network with over 2,000 km (1,243 mi) of highways and motorways. By road, Brussels can be reached in three hours, Frankfurt in six hours and Barcelona in 12 hours. By train, London is now just two hours and 15 minutes away, Brussels can be reached in 1 hour and 22 minutes (up to 26 departures/day), Amsterdam in 3 hours and 18 minutes (up to 10 departures/day), Cologne in 3 hours and 14 minutes (6 departures/day), and Marseille, Bordeaux, and other cities in southern France in three hours.

Health

Health care and emergency medical service in the city of Paris and its suburbs are provided by the Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), a public hospital system that employs more than 90,000 people (practitioners and administratives) in 44 hospitals. It is the largest hospital system in Europe[76].

^ It is unlikely that Paris' modern appellation of Ville Lumière was given to the capital of France because it was a centre of education, ideas and culture, as it had been such a centre since the Middle Ages. It is more likely, however, that, aside from the apparition of street lighting at night, Paris became known as Ville Lumière in the second half of the 19th century, when baron Haussmann, who had been put in charge by emperor Napoléon III of the drastic transformation of Paris into a modern city, tore down whole quartiers of houses & narrow streets dating back to the Middle Ages, and opened large avenues which let light (lumière) come into the former medieval city.

"In March 1871 the Commune took power in the abandoned city and held it for two months. Then Versailles seized the moment to attack and, in one horrifying week, executed roughly 20,000 Communards or suspected sympathizers, a number higher than those killed in the recent war or during Robespierre’s ‘Terror’ of 1793–94. More than 7,500 were jailed or deported to places like New Caledonia. Thousands of others fled to Belgium, England, Italy, Spain and the United States. In 1872, stringent laws were passed that ruled out all possibilities of organizing on the left. Not till 1880 was there a general amnesty for exiled and imprisoned Communards. Meantime, the Third Republic found itself strong enough to renew and reinforce Louis Napoleon’s imperialist expansion—in Indochina, Africa, and Oceania. Many of France’s leading intellectuals and artists had participated in the Commune (Courbet was its quasi-minister of culture, Rimbaud and Pissarro were active propagandists) or were sympathetic to it. The ferocious repression of 1871 and after was probably the key factor in alienating these milieux from the Third Republic and stirring their sympathy for its victims at home and abroad."

From LoveToKnow 1911

PARIS, the
capital of France and the
department of Seine, situated on
both banks of the Seine, 233 m.
from its mouth and 285 m. S.S.E. of London by rail and steamer via Dover and Calais, in 48° 50' 14" N., 2° 20' 14" E.
(observatory). It occupies the centre of the so-called Paris basin,
which is traversed by the Seine from south-east to north-west, open
towards the west, and surrounded by a line of Jurassic heights. The granitic substratum is
covered by Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary formations; and at several points
building materials - freestone, limestone or gypsum - have been laid bare by erosion. It is
partly, indeed, to the existence of such quarries in its
neighbourhood, and to the vicinity of the grain-bearing regions of the Beauce and Brie
that the city owes its development. Still more important is its
position at the meeting-place of the great natural highways leading
from the Mediterranean to the ocean by way of the Rhone valley and from Spain northwards over the lowlands of western
France. The altitude of
Paris varies between 80 ft. (at the Point du Jour, the exit of the
Seine from the fortifications) and 420 ft. at the hill of
Montmartre in the north of the city; the other chief eminence is the hill of Ste
Genevieve, on the left bank. Since 1840 Paris has been completely
surrounded by a wall, which since 1860 has served also as the limit
for the collection of municipal customs dues (octroi). Proposals are constantly being
brought forward to demolish this wall - which, with its talus, is encircled by a broad and
deep ditch - either entirely or at least from the Point du Jour,
where the Seine intersects the wall below the city, to Pantin, so as to extend the
limits of the city as far as the Seine, which runs almost parallel
with the wall for that distance. Within the wall the area of the
city is 19,279 acres; the river runs through it from east to west
in a broad curve for a distance
of nearly 8 m.

Climate

Paris has a fairly uniform climate. The mean temperature,
calculated from observations extending over fifty years
(1841-1890), is 49° 8 F. The highest reading (observed in July 1874 and again in
July 1881) is 101 ° F., the lowest (in December 1879) is - 14°. The
monthly means for the fifty years1841-1890were: January 35° 9,
February 38° 3, March 42° 3, April 49° 5, May 55° 6, June 61°. 7,
July 64° 6, August 63° 5, September 58°. 2, October 49° 8, November
40° 2, December 36°. 6. The Seine freezes when the temperature
falls below 18°. It was frozen in nearly its whole extent from
Bercy to Auteuil in the winters of 1819-1820,
1829-1830,1879-1880and 1890-1891. Rain falls, on an average, on about 200 days, the
average quantity in a year being between 22 and 23 in. The rainfall
from December to April inclusive is less than the average, while
the rainfall from May to November exceeds the average for the whole
year. The driest month is February, the rainiest June - the
rainfall for these months being respectively 1.3 in. and 2.3 in.
The prevailing winds are those from the south, south-west and west.
The general character of the climate, somewhat continental in
winter and oceanic in summer, has been more closely observed since
the three observatories at different heights on the Eiffel Tower were
added in 1889 to the old-established ones of the parks of St Maur
and Montsouris. 1 The observatory at the old church-tower St Jacques (16th century) in
the centre of the city, and since 1896 a municipal establishment,
is of special interest on account of the study made there of the
transparency and purity of the air.
There are barely loo days in the year when the air is very clear.
Generally the city is covered by floating mists, possibly 1500 ft.
in thickness. During the prevalence of north-easterly winds the sky is most obscured, since on that
side lies the greatest number of factories with smoking
chimneys.

Defences

Paris, described in a recent German account as the greatest
fortress in the world, possesses three perfectly distinct rings of
defences. The two inner, the enceinte and the circle of detached forts
around it, are of the bastioned type which French engineers of the
Noizet school favoured; they were built in the time of Louis Philippe,
and with very few additions sustained the siege of 1870-71. The outer works, of more modern
type, forming an entrenched camp which in area is rivalled only by
the Antwerp system of
defences, were built after the Franco-German War.

The enceinte (" the fortifications " of the guide-books) is of
plain bastion trace, without
ravelins but with a deep dry ditch (escarp, but not counterscarp
revetted). It is nearly 22 m. in perimeter and has 93 bastions, 67
gates and 9 railway
passages. The greater part of the enceinte has, however, been given
up, and a larger one projected - as at Antwerp - by connecting up
the old detached forts.

1 The observatories of the Tour St Jacques and of Montsouris
belong to the municipality of Paris; that of St Maur
depends on the Central Bureau
of Meteorology, a
national institution.

48 52 These forts, which endured the siege in 1870-71, have a
perimeter of about 34 m. Each is designed as a miniature fortress with ample casemates and
high cavaliers, the tenailles and ravelins, however, being as a
rule omitted. On the north side there are three forts (connected by
a plain parapet) around St Denis, one of these being arranged to control an
inundation. Next, to the right, or eastward, comes Fort
Aubervillers, which commands the approaches north of the wood of
Bondy. These four works lie in relatively low ground. The eastern
works are situated on higher ground (300-350 ft.); they consist of
four forts and various small redoubts, and command the approaches
from the great wood of Bondy. In low ground again at the narrowest
point of the great loop of the Marne (near St Maurles-Fosses)
there are two redoubts connected by a parapet, and between the Seine and the Marne,
in advance of their confluence, Fort Charenton. On the south side
of the city, hardly more than a mile from the enceinte, is a row of
forts, Ivry, Bicetre, Montrouge, Vanves and Issy, solidly
constructed works in themselves but, as was shown in 1870, nearly
useless for the defences of the city against rifled guns, as (with
the exception of Bicetre) they are overlooked by the plateau of Chatillon. On the west side
of Paris is the famous fortress of Mont Valerien, standing 53 6 ft.
above the sea and about 450 above the river. This completes the
catalogue of the inner fort-line. It is strengthened by two groups
of works which were erected in " provisional " form during the
siege,' and afterwards reconstructed as permanent forts - Hautes
Bruyeres on the plateau of Villejuif, 1 m. south of Fort Bicetre,
and the Chatillon fort and batteries which now prevent access to
the celebrated plateau that overlooks Paris from a height of 600
ft., and of which the rear
batteries sweep almost the whole of the ground between Bicetre and
Mont Valerien.

The new works are i i m. from the Louvre and 8 from the
enceinte. They form a circle of 75 m. circumference, and an army
which attempted to invest Paris to-day would have to be at least
500,000 strong, irrespective of all field and covering forces. The
actual. defence of the works, apart from troops temporarily
collected in the fortified area, would need some 170,000 men
only.

The entrenched camp falls into three sections - the north, the
east and the south-west. The forts (of the general1874-1875French
type, see Fortification And
Siegecraft) have from 24 to 60 heavy guns and 600 to 1200 men
each, the redoubts, batteries and annexe-batteries generally 200
men and 6 guns. In the northern section a ridge crosses the
northern extremities of the St Germain-Argenteuil loop of the Seine after the
fashion of the armature of
a horse-shoe magnet; on this ridge (about 560 ft.) is a
group of works, named after the village of Cormeilles, commanding
the lower Seine, the Argenteuil peninsula and the lower ground
towards the Oise. At an average
distance of 5 m. from St Denis lie the works of the
Montlignon-Domont position (about 600-670 ft.), which sweep all
ground to the north, cross their fire with the Cormeilles works,
and deny the plateau of Montmorency-Mery-sur-Oise to an
enemy. At Ecouen, on an isolated hill, are a fort and a redoubt, and to the right near
these Fort Stains and two batteries on the ceinture railway. The
important eastern section consists of the Vaujours position, the
salient of the whole fortress, which commands the countryside to
the north as far as Dammartin and Claye, crosses its fire with
Stains on the one hand and Villiers on the other, and itself lies
on a steep hill at the outer edge of the forest of Bondy which
allows free and concealed communication between the fort and the
inner line of works. The Vaujours works are armoured. Three miles
to the right of Vaujours is Fort Chelles, which bars the roads and
railways of the Marne valley. On the other side of the Marne, on
ground made historic by the events of 1870, are forts Villiers and
Champigny, designed as a bridgehead to enable the defenders to
assemble in front of the Marne. To the right of these is a fort
near Boissy-St-Leger, and on the right of the whole section are the
armoured works of the ' The plateau of Mont Avron on the east side,
which was provisionally fortified in 1870, is not now defended.

Villeneuve-St-Georges position, which command the Seine and
Yeres country as far as Brie and Corbeil. The left of the southwestern section
is formed by the powerful Fort Palaiseau and its annexe-batteries,
which command the Yvette valley. Behind Fort Palaiseau, midway
between it and Fort Chatillon, is the Verrieres group, overlooking
the valley of the Bievre. To the right of Palaiseau on the high
ground towards Versailles are other works, and around
Versailles itself is a semi-circle of batteries right and left of
the armoured Fort St Cyr. In various positions around Marly there
are some seven or eight batteries.

The development of Paris can be traced outwards in approximately
concentric rings from the Gallo-Roman town on the Iie de la Cite to
the fortifications which now form its boundary. A line of
boulevards known as the Grands Boulevards, 2 coinciding in great
part with ramparts of the 14th, 16th and 17th centuries, encloses
most of old Paris, a portion of which extends southwards beyond the
Boulevard St Germain.
Outside the Grands Boulevards lie the faubourgs or old
suburbs, round which runs another enceinte of boulevards -
boulevards exterieurs - corresponding to ramparts of the 18th
century. Beyond them other and more modern suburbs incorporated
with the city after 1860 stretch to the boulevards which line the
present fortifications. On the north, east and south these are
commercial or industrial in character, inhabited by the working
classes and petite bourgeoisie, while here and there there
are still areas devoted to market gardening; those on the west are
residential centres for the upper classes (Auteuil and Passy). Of
the faubourgs of Paris those to the north and east are
mainly commercial (Faubourgs St Denis, St Martin, Poissonniere) or industrial (Faubourgs
du Temple and St Antoine) in character, while to the west the Faubourg St Honore, the
Champs Elysees and the Faubourg St Germain are occupied by the
residences of the upper classes of the population. The chief
resorts of business and pleasure are concentrated within the Grands
Boulevards, and more especially on the north bank of the Seine. No
uniformity marks the street-plan of this or the other quarters of
the city. One broad and almost straight thoroughfare bisects it
under various names from Neuilly (W.N.W.) to Vincennes (E.S.E.). Within the limits of the
Grands Boulevards it is known as the Rue de Rivoli (over 2 m. in length) and the Rue St
Antoine and runs parallel with and close to the Seine from the
Place de la Concorde to the Place de la Bastille. From the Eastern station to the
observatory Paris is traversed N.N.E. and S.S.W. for 22 m. by
another important thoroughfare - the Boulevard de Strasbourg
continued as the Boulevard de Sebastopol, as the Boulevard du
Palais on the The de la Cite, and on the south bank as the
Boulevard St Michel. The line of the Grands Boulevards from the
Madeleine to the Bastille, by way of the Place de l'Opera, the
Porte St Denis and the Porte St Martin (two triumphal arches
erected in the latter half of the 17th century in honour of Louis
XIV.) and the Place de la Republique stretches for nearly 3 m. It
contains most of the large cafes and several of the chief theatres,
and though its gaiety and animation are concentrated at the western
end - in the Boulevards des Italiens, des Capucines and de la
Madeleine - it is as a whole one of the most celebrated avenues in
the world. On the right side of the river may also be mentioned the
Rue Royale, from the Madeleine to the Place de la Concorde; the Malesherbes
and I-Iaussmann boulevards, the first stretching from the Place
Madeleine north-west to the fortifications, the second from the
Grands Boulevards near the Place de l'Opera nearly to the Place de
l'Etoile; the Avenue de
l'Opera, which unites the Place du Palais Royal, approximately the
central point of Paris, with the Place de l'Opera; the Rue de la
Paix, connecting the Place Vendome with the Place de l'Opera, and noted
for its fashionable dress-making
establishments, and the Rue Auber and Rue du Quatre Septembre, also
terminating in the Place de l'Opera, in the vicinity of which are
found some 2 The word boulevard means " bulwark " or fortification and thus has
direct reference to the old ramparts. But since the middle of the
19th century the title has been applied to new thoroughfares not
traced on the site of an old enceinte.

of the finest shops in Paris; the Rue St Honore running parallel
with the Rue de Rivoli, from the Rue Royale to the Central Markets;
the Rue de Lafayette,
one of the longest streets of Paris, traversing the town from the
Opera to the Bassin de la
Villette; the Boulevard Magenta, from Montmartre to the Place de la
Republique; and the Rue de Turbigo, from this place to the
Halles Centrales. On the left side of the river the main
thoroughfare is the Boulevard St Germain, beginning at the Pont Sully, skirting the Quartier Latin, the educational quarter on
the north, and terminating at the Pont de la Concorde after
traversing a quarter mainly devoted to ministries, embassies and
other official buildings and to the residences of the noblesse.
Squares. - Some of the chief squares have already been
mentioned. The finest is the Place de la Concorde, laid out under
Louis XV. by J. A. Gabriel and noted as the scene
of the execution of Louis
XVI., Marie Antoinette and many other
victims of the Revolution. The central decoration consists of an obelisk from the great temple
at Luxor in Upper Egypt, presented to Louis Philippe
in 1831 by Mehemet
Ali, and flanked by two monumental fountains. The formation of
the Place Vendome was begun towards the end of the 17th century. In
the middle there is a column surmounted by a statue of Napoleon I. and decorated
with plates of bronze on which
are depicted scenes from the campaign of 1805. The Place de
l'Etoile is the centre of twelve avenues radiating from it in all
directions. The chief of these is the fashionable Avenue des Champs
Elysees which connects it with the Place de la Concorde; while on
the other side the Avenue de la Grande Armee leads to the
fortifications, the two forming a section of the main artery of
Paris; the well-wooded Avenue du Bois de Boulogne forms the threshold of the celebrated park of that
name. In the centre of the Place, the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile,
the largest triumphal arch in the world (162 ft.
high by 147 ft. wide), commemorates the military triumphs of the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic troops. The finest of the sculptures
on its façades is that representing the departure of the volunteers in 1792 by Francois Rude. The
Place de la Republique, in which stands a huge statue of the
Republic, did not receive its present form till 1879. The Place de
la Bastille stands a little to the east of the site of the famous
state prison. It contains the
Colonne de Juillet erected in memory of those who fell in the
revolution of July 1830. The Place du Carrousel, enclosed within
the western wings of the Louvre and so named from a revel given
there by Louis XIV., was
enlarged about the middle of the 19th century. The triumphal arch
on its west side commemorates the victories of 1805 and formed the
main entrance to the Tuileries palace (see below). Facing the arch
there is a stone pyramid
forming the background to a statue of Gambetta. Other squares are
the Place des Victoires, dating from 1685, with the equestrian
statue of Louis XIV.; the Place des Vosges, formerly Place Royale,
formed by Henry IV. on the
site of the old Tournelles Palace and containing the equestrian
statue of Louis XI I I.;
the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, once the Place de Greve and the
scene of many state executions from the beginning of the 14th
century till 1830; the Place du Chatelet, on the site of the prison of the
Grand Chatelet, pulled down in 1802, with a fountain and a column commemorative of
victories of Napoleon, and the Place de la Nation decorated with a
fountain and a bronze group representing the Triumph of the
Republic, and with two columns of 1788 surmounted by statues of St
Louis and Philip, Augustus,
corresponding at the east of the city to the Place de l'Etoile at
the west.

South of the Seine are the Place St Michel, adorned with a
monumental fountain, and one of the great centres of traffic in
Paris; the Carrefour de l'Observatoire, with the monument to Francis Jarnier, the explorer,
and the statue of General Ney standing on the spot where he was
shot; the Place du Pantheon; the Place Denfert Rochereau, adorned
with a colossal lion symbolizing
the defence of Belfort in
1871; the Place St Sulpice, with a modern fountain embellished with
the statues of the preachers Bossuet, Fenelon, Massillon and Flechier; the Place Vauban,
behind the Invalides; and the Place du Palais Bourbon, in front of
the Chamber of Deputies. On the Ile de la Cite in front of the cathedral is the Place du
Parvis-Notre-Dame, with the
equestrian statue of Charlemagne.

Besides those already mentioned, Paris possesses other
monumental fountains of artistic value. The Fontaine des Innocents
in the Square des Innocents belonged to the church of that name
demolished in 1786. It is a graceful work of the Renaissance
designed by Pierre Lescot and retains sculptures by Jean Goujon. On its
reconstruction on the present site other carvings were added by Augustin Pajou. A
fountain of the first half of the 18th century in the Rue de
Grenelle is remarkable for its rich decoration, while another in
the Avenue de l'Observatoire is an elaborate modern work, the
central group of which by J. B. Carpeaux represents the four
quarters of the globe supporting the terrestrial sphere. The
Fontaine de Medicis (17th century) in the Luxembourg garden is a work of Salomon
Debrosse in the Doric style; the
fountain in the Place Louvois (1844) representing the rivers of
France is by Louis Visconti. In 1872 Sir Richard
Wallace gave the municipality fifty drinking-fountains which
are placed in different parts of the city.

The Seine

The Seine flows for nearly 8 m. through Paris. As it enters and
as it leaves the city it is crossed by a viaduct used by the
circular railway and for ordinary traffic; that of Point du Jour
has two storeys of arches. Three bridges - the Passerelle de 1'Estacade, between
the Ile St Louis and the right bank, the Pont des Arts and the
Passerelle Debilly (close to the Trocadero) - are for foot
passengers only; all the others are for carriages as well. The most
famous, and in its actual state the oldest, is the Pont Neuf, begun
in 1578, the two portions of which rest on the extremity of the
island called La Cite, the point at which the river is at its
widest (863 ft.). On the embankment below the Pont Neuf stands the
equestrian statue of Henry IV. Between La Cite and the left bank
the width of the lesser channel is reduced to 95 ft. The river has
a width of 540 ft. as it enters Paris and of 446 ft. as it leaves
it. After its entrance to the city it passes under the bridges of
Tolbiac, Bercy and Austerlitz, that of Sully, those of Marie
and Louis Philippe between the Ile St Louis and the right bank;
that of La Tournelle between the Ile St Louis and the left bank;
that of St Louis between the Ile St Louis and La Cite. The Cite
communicates with the right bank by the Pont d'Arcole, the Pont
Notre-Dame, built on foundations of the 15th century, and the Pont
au Change, owing its name to the shops of the money-changers and
goldsmiths which bordered its medieval predecessor; with the left
bank by that of the Archeveche, the so-called Pont au Double, the
Petit Pont and the Pont St Michel, the original of which was built
towards the end of the 14th century. Below the Pont Neuf come the
Pont des Arts, Pont du Carrousel, Pont Royal (a fine stone
structure leading to the Tuileries), and those of Solferino, La Concorde,
Alexandre III. (the finest and most modern bridge in Paris, its
foundation-stone having been laid by the czar Nicholas II. in 1896),
Invalides, Alma, Iena (opposite
the Champ de Mars), Passy,
Grenelle and Mirabeau. The Seine has at times caused disastrous
floods in the city, as in January 1910. (See Seine.) The houses of Paris nowhere abut directly
on the river banks, which in their whole extent from the bridge of
Austerlitz to Passy are protected by broad embankments or " quais."
At the foot of these lie several ports for the unloading and
loading of goods, &c. - on the right side Bercy for wines, La
Rapee for timber, Port Mazas,
the Port de l'Arsenal at the mouth of the St Martin can 4 al, 1 the
Port Henry IV., des Celestins, St Paul, des Ormes, de 1'Hotel de Ville (the two latter for
fruit) and the Port St Nicolas (foreign vessels); on the left bank
the Port de la Gare for petroleum, St Bernard for wines and the
embarcation of sewage, and the ports of La Tournelle (old iron), Orsay (building material), the
Invalides, Gros Caillou, the Cygnes, Grenelle and Javel (refuse).
Besides the river ports, the port of Paris also includes the canals
of St Martin and the portions of the canals of St Denis and the
Ourcq within the walls. All three debouch in the busy and extensive
basin of La Villette in the north-east of the city. The traffic of
the port is chiefly in coal,
building materials and stone, manure and fertilizers, agricultural
produce and food-stuffs.

Promenades and Parks

In the heart of Paris are
situated the gardens of the Tuileries 2 (56 acres), designed by
Andre Le Notre under Louis XIV. Though added to and altered
afterwards they retain the main outlines of the original plan. They
are laid out in parterres and bosquets, planted with chestnut trees, lindens and
plane trees, and adorned with playing fountains and basins, and
numerous statues mostly antique in subject. From the terrace along the river-side a fine view is to
be had over the Seine to the park and palace of the Trocadero; and
1 This canal (3 m. long) leaving the Seine below Austerlitz bridge,
passes by a tunnel under the
Place de la Bastille and Boulevard Richard Lenoir, and rises by
sluices to the 'La Villette basin, from which the St Denis canal (4
m. long) descends to the Seine at St Denis. In this way boats going
up or down the river can avoid passing through Paris. The canal de
l'Ourcq, which supplies the two canals mentioned, contributes to
the water-supply
of Paris as well as to its transport facilities.

These gardens are the property of the state, the other areas
mentioned being the property of the town.

from the terraces along the Place de la Concorde the eye takes
in the Place and the Avenue of the Champs Elysees. The gardens of
the Luxembourg,' planned by S. Debrosse (17th century) and situated
in front of the palace occupied by the senate, are about the same size as those of the
Tuileries; with less regularity of form they present greater
variety of appearance. In the line of the main entrance extends the
beautiful Observatory Walk, terminating in the monumental fountain
mentioned above. Besides these gardens laid out in the French
taste, with straight walks and regular beds, there are several in
what the French designate the English style. The finest and most
extensive of these, the Buttes-Chaumont Gardens, in the north-east
of the city, occupy 57 acres of very irregular ground, which up to
1866 was occupied by plaster-quarries, limekilns and brickworks. The
" buttes " or knolls are now covered with turf, flowers and shrubbery. Advantage has been
taken of the varying relief of the site to form a fine lake and a
cascade with picturesque rocks. The Montsouris Park, in the south
of the city, 38 acres in extent, also consists of broken ground; in
the middle stands the meteorological observatory, built after the
model of the Tunisian palace of Bardo, and it also contains a
monument in memory of the Flatters expedition to the Sahara in 1881. The small Monceau
Park, in the aristocratic quarter to the north of the Boulevard
Haussmann, is a portion of the old park belonging to King Louis
Philippe, and contains monuments to Chopin, Gounod, Guy de
Maupassant and others.

The Jardin des Plantes (founded in the first half of the 17th
century), about 58 acres in extent, combines both styles. Its
museum of natural history (1793), with its zoological
gardens, its hothouses and greenhouses, its nursery and naturalization
gardens, its museums of zoology, anatomy, anthropology, botany, mineralogy and geology, its laboratories, and its courses of
lectures by the most distinguished professors in all branches of
natural science, make it an institution of universally acknowledged
eminence.

Other open spaces worthy of mention are the Champs Elysees (west
of the Place de la -Concorde), begun at the end of the 17th century
but only established in their present form since 1858; the
Trocadero Park, laid out for the exhibition of 1878, with its
lakes, cascade and aquarium; the Champ de Mars (laid out about
1770 as a manoeuvring ground for the Champ_ Militaire), containing
the Eiffel Tower (q.v.); the gardens of the Palais Royal;
surrounded by galleries; and the Ranelagh in Passy.

The Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes situated outside the
fortifications are on a far larger scale than the parks within
them. The Bois de Boulogne, commonly called the " Bois," is reached
by the wide avenue of the Champs Elysees as far as the Arc de
Triomphe and thence by the avenue of the Bois de Boulogne or that
of the Grande Armee. The first of these, with its side walks for
foot passengers and equestrians, grass-plots, flower-beds and elegant buildings, affords a
wide prospect over the Bois and the hills of St Cloud and Mont Valerien. The Bois de Boulogne
covers an area of 2100 acres, is occupied by turf, clumps of trees,
sheets of water or running streams. Here are the two race-courses
of Longchamp (flat races) and Auteuil (steeplechases), the park of
the small château of Bagatelle, 1777, the grounds of the Polo Club and the Racing Club and the
gardens of the Acclimatization Society, which, with
their menageries, conservatories and aquarium, are largely visited
by pleasure-seekers. Trees for the public parks and squares are
grown in the municipal nurseries situated on the south border of
the Bois. On the east it is adjoined by the Park of La Muette, with
the old royal château. The Bois de Vincennes (see Vincennes) is 2300 acres in
area and is similarly adorned with streams, lakes and cascades.

Churches

The most important church in Paris is the cathedral of
Notre-Dame, founded in 1163, completed about 1240. Measuring 139
yds. in length and 52 yds. in breadth, the church consists of a choir and apse, a short transept, and a nave with double aisles which are continued round
the choir and are flanked by square chapels added after the
completion of the rest of the church. The central spire, 148 ft. in height, was erected in the
course of a restoration carried out between 1846 and 1879 under the
direction of Viollet le Duc. Two massive square towers crown the principal facade. Its three doors are
decorated with fine early Gothiccarving and surmounted by a row of figures
representing twenty-eight kings of Israel and Judah. Above the central door is a rose.
window, above which is a third
storey consisting of a
graceful gallery of pointed arches supported These 'gardens are the
property of the state, the other areas mentioned being the property
of the town.

on slender columns. The transept has two facades, also richly
decorated with chiselled work and containing rose windows. Of the
elaborate decoration of the interior all that is medieval is a part
of the screen of the choir
(the first half of the 14th century), with sculptures representing
scenes from the life of Christ, and the stained glass of the rose windows (13th
century). The woodwork in the choir (early 18th century), and a marble group called the " Vow of Louis XIII." (17th century) by Couston and
Coysevox, are other noticeable works of art. The church possesses
the Crown of Thorns and a fragment of the Cross, which attract
numerous pilgrims.

Paris is poor in Romanesque architecture, which is represented chiefly
in the nave and transept of St Germain-des-Pres, the choir of which
is Gothic in tendency. The church, which once belonged to the
celebrated abbey of St Germain
founded in the 6th century, contains fine modern frescoes by Hippolyte Flandrin. The
Transition style is also exemplified in St Pierre-de-Montmartre
(12th century). Besides the cathedral there are several churches of
the Gothic period, the most important being St Julien-le-Pauvre,
now serving as a Greek church, which is contemporary with
NotreDame; St Germain-l'Auxerrois (13th to 16th centuries), whose
projecting porch is a graceful
work of 1435; St Severin (mainly of the 13th and 16th centuries);
St Gervais, largely in the Flamboyant Gothic style with an
interesting facade by S. Debrosse in the classical manner; and St
Merry (1520-1612), almost wholly Gothic in architecture. St
Gervais, St Merry and St Germain all contain valuable works of art,
the stained glass of the two
former being especially noteworthy.

St Etienne-du-Mont combines the Gothic and Renaissance styles in
its nave and transept, while its choir is of Gothic, its facade of
pure Renaissance architecture. In the interior, one of the most
beautiful in the city, there is a fine rood-loft
(1600-1609) by Pierre Biard and a splendid collection of stained
windows of the 16th and early 17th centuries; a chapel contains part of the sarcophagus of Ste
Genevieve, which is the object of a pilgrimage. St Eustache (1532-c. 1650),
though its construction displays many Gothic characteristics,
belongs wholly, with the exception of a Classical facade of the
18th century, to the Renaissance period, being unique in this
respect among the more important of French churches. The church
contains the sarcophagus and statue (by A. Coysevox) of Colbert and
the tombs of other eminent men.

Of churches in the Classical style the principal are St Sulpice
(1655-1777), almost equalling Notre-Dame in dimensions and
possessing a facade by J. N. Servandoni ranking among the finest of
its period; St Roch
(1653-1740), which contains numerous works of art of the 17th and
18th centuries; St Paul-St Louis (1627-1641); and the church
(1645-1665) of the former nunnery of Val-de-Grace
(now a military hospital
and medical school), which has a dome built after the model of St Peter's at Rome. All these churches are in the
old city.

Of the churches of the 19th century, the most remarkable is that
of the Sacre Coeur, an important resort of pilgrims, begun in 1876
and overlooking Paris from the heights of Montmartre. The Sacre
Coeur is in the Romanesque style, but is surmounted by a Byzantine
dome behind which rises a lofty belfry. The bell presented by the dioceses of Savoy and known
as " la Savoyarde " weighs between 17 and 18 tons. Of the other
modern churches the oldest is the Madeleine, built under Napoleon
I. by Pierre Vignon on the foundations of a church of the 18th
century and finished in 1842. It was intended by the emperor as a " temple of glory " and is built on the lines
of a Roman temple with a fine colonnade surrounding it. The interior,
consisting of a single nave bordered by chapels and roofed with
cupolas, is decorated with sculptures and painting by eminent modern artists.
Notre-Dame-de-Lorette (1823-1836) and St Vincent-de-Paul (1824-1844) are in the
style of early Christian basilicas. Both contain good frescoes, the
frieze of the nave in St
Vincent-de-Paul being an elaborate work by Hippolyte Flandrin.
Ste Clotilde, the most important representation of modern Gothic in
Paris, dates from the middle of the century. St Augustin and La
Trinite in the Renaissance style were both built between 1860 and
1870. With the exception of Ste Clotilde in the St Germain quarter
and the Madeleine, the modern churches above mentioned are all in
the northern quarters of Paris.

Civil Buildings

The most important of the civil buildings of Paris is the palace
of the Louvre (Lupara), the south front of which extends
along the Seine for about half a mile. It owes its origin to Philip
Augustus, who erected a huge keep defended by a rectangle of
fortifications in what is now the south-west corner of the
quadrangle, where its plan is traced on the pavement. The fortress was demolished by Francis I. and under that
monarch and his successors Pierre Lescot built the portions of the
wings to the south and west of the courtyard, which rank among the
finest examples of Renaissance architecture. The rest of the
buildings surrounding the courtyard date from the reigns of Louis
XIII. and XIV., the most noteworthy feature being the colonnade
(1666-1670) of the east façade designed by Claude Perrault. The two
wings projecting westwards from the corners of the quadrangle, each
consisting of two parallel galleries with pavilions at intervals,
were built under Napoleon III., with the exception of the
Grande Galerie and at right angles to it the Pavillon Henry IV.,
containing the Apollo gallery,
which were erected on the river front by Catherine de Medici and Henry IV.
Of these two wings that on the north is occupied by the ministry of
finance. The history of the
palace of the Tuileries (so called in allusion to the tile kilns which occupied its site)
is intimately connected with that of the Louvre, its origin being
due to Catherine de Medici and
Henry IV. The latter built the wing, rebuilt under Napoleon III.,
which united it with the Grande Galerie, the corresponding wing on
the north side dating from various periods of the 10th century. The
palace itself was burnt by the Communists in 1871, with the
exception of the terminal pavilion on the south (Pavillon de Flore);
only the northern terminal pavilion (Pavillon de Marsan, now
occupied by the museum of decorative arts) was rebuilt.

Next in importance to the Louvre is the Palais de Justice (law
courts), a huge assemblage of buildings covering the greater part
of the Ile de la Cite to the west of the Boulevard du Palais.
During the Gallo-Roman period the site was occupied by a citadel
which became the palace of the Merovingian kings and afterwards of
the Capetian kings. In the 12th and 13th centuries it was altered
and enlarged by the latter, and, during part of that period was
also occupied by the parlement of Paris, to which it was entirely
made over under Charles
V. In 1618, 1737 and 1776 the building was ravaged by fire, and
in its present state is in great part the outcome of a systematic
reconstruction begun in 1840. In the interior the only medieval
remains are the Sainte-Chapelle, the Conciergerie, an old prison
where Marie Antoinette and other illustrious victims of the
Revolution were confined, and some halls and kitchens of the 13th
century. All these are on the ground floor, a portion of which is
assigned to the police. The
courts, which include the Cour de Cassation, the supreme tribunal
in France, the Court of Appeal and the Court of First Instance, are
on the first floor, the chief feature of which is the fine Salle
des Pas Perdus, the successor of the Grand' Salle, a hall
originally built by Philip the Fair and rebuilt after fires in 1618
and 1871. The Sainte-Chapelle, one of the most perfect specimens of
Gothic art, was erected from 1245 to 1248 by St Louis as a shrine for the crown of thorns
and other relics now at
Notre-Dame, and was restored in the 19th century. It comprises a
lower portion for the use of the servants and retainers and the
upper portion or royal chapel, the latter richly decorated and
lighted by lofty windows set close together and filled with
beautiful stained glass. The Palais de Justice presents towards the
west a Greek facade by J. L. Duc (d. 1879), which is reckoned among
the finest achievements of modern art. The facade towards the Seine
embodies four towers which date in parts from the reconstruction
under the Capetian dynasty. That at the east angle (the Tour de
l'Horloge) contains a clock of
1370, said to be the oldest public clock in France. A handsome iron
railing of 1787 separates the courtyard on the east side from the
Boulevard du Palais.

About a quarter of a mile south of the Palais de Justice
adjoining the Jardin de Cluny
lies the Hotel de Cluny, acquired in 1833 by the antiquarian A. du
Sommerard as a repository for his collections and now belonging to
the state. It is a graceful and well-preserved building in late
Gothic style distinguished for the beautiful carving of the doors,
dormer windows and open-work
parapet. The mansion, which
contains a rich Gothic chapel, was erected at the end of the 15th
century by Jacques d'Amboise, abbot of Cluny. It stands on the site of a Roman
palace said to have been built by the emperor Constantius Chlorus
(d. 306), and ruins of the baths
are still to be seen adjoining it.

The other civil buildings of Paris are inferior in interest and
attraction. The Hotel des Invalides on the left bank of the Seine
opposite the Champs Elysees dates from the reign of Louis XIV.; by
whom it was founded as a retreat for wounded and infirm soldiers,
its inmates are few in number, and the building also serves as
headquarters of the military governor of Paris. A garden and a
spacious esplanade stretching to the Quai d'Orsay precede the north
facade; the entrance to this opens into the Cour d'Honneur, a
courtyard enclosed by a moat above
which is a battery of cannon used for salutes on
important occasions. On either side of the Cour d'Honneur lie the
museums of military history and of artillery (weapons and armour). The parish
church of St Louis, decorated with flags captured in the wars of
the Second Empire, closes the south side of the Cour d'Honneur,
while behind all rises a magnificent gilded dome sheltering another
church, the Eglise royale, built by J. H. Mansart from 1693 to
1706. The central crypt of this
church contains a fine sarcophagus of red porphyry in which lie the remains of Napoleon
I., brought from St Helena in
1840, while close by are the tombs of his friends Duroc and
Bertrand.

The Pantheon, on the left bank near the Luxembourg garden, was
built to the plans of J. G. Soufflot in the last half of the 18th
century under the name of Ste Genevieve, whose previous sanctuary it replaced. In
1791 the Constituent Assembly decreed that it should be no longer a
church but a sepulchre for great Frenchmen. Voltaire and Mirabeau
were the first to be entombed in the Pantheon as it then came to be
called. Reconsecrated and resecularized more than once during the
19th century, the building finally regained its present name in
1885, when Victor Hugo was buried there. The
Pantheon is an imposing domed building in the form of a Greek
cross. The tympanum above the portico by David d'Angers and, in the interior, paintings of
the life of Ste Genevieve by Puvis de Chavannes are
features of its artistic decoration.

Various public bodies occupy mansions and palaces built under
the ancient regime. The Palais Royal, built by Richelieu about 1630
and afterwards inhabited by Anne of Austria, the regentPhilip II. of Orleans and Philippe Egalite, is now occupied
by the Council of State and the Theatre Francais. The Palace of the Luxembourg
stands on the site of a mansion belonging to Duke Francis of
Luxembourg, which was rebuilt by Marie de Medici, wife of Henry IV.
The architect, Salomon Debrosse, was ordered to take the Pitti
Palace at Florence as his
model, but notwithstanding the general plan of the building is
French. The south facade facing the Luxembourg garden was rebuilt
in the original style under Louis Philippe. The residence of
various royal personages during the 17th and 18th centuries, the
Luxembourg became during the revolutionary period the palace of the
Directory and later of
the Consulate. In the 19th century it was occupied by the senate of
Napoleon I., by the chamber of peers under. Louis Philippe, by the
senate under Napoleon III., and since 1879 by the republican
senate. The chamber of deputies meets in the Palais Bourbon, built
in the 18th century for members of the Bourbon-Conde family. The facade, which faces the Pont de
la Concorde, is in the style of an ancient temple and dates from
the early years of the 19th century, when the corps legislatif held
their sittings in the building. The Palais de l'Elysee, the
residence of the president of the republic, was built in 1718 for
Louis d'Auvergne, count of Evreux, and was afterwards acquired by Madame de
Pompadour; during the 19th century Napoleon I., Napoleon III., and
other illustrious persons resided there. The building has been
often altered and enlarged. The hotel-de-ville (1873-1882), on the
right bank of the Seine opposite the Ile de la Cite, stands on the
site of a town hall built from 1535 to 1628, much enlarged towards
1840, and destroyed by the Communists in 1871. It is an isolated
building in the French Renaissance style, the west facade with its
statuary, pilasters, high-pitched roofs and dormer windows being specially
elaborate. The interior has been decorated by many prominent
artists.

Certain of the schools and museums of Paris occupy buildings of
architectural interest. The Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, a
technical school and museum of machinery, &c., founded by the
engineer Vaucanson in 1775, is established in the old Cluniac
priory of St Martin-des-Champs, enlarged in the 19th century. The
refectory is a fine hall
of the 13th century; the church with an interesting choir in the
Transition style dates from the 11th to the 13th centuries. The
Musee Carnavalet was built in the 16th century for Francois de
Kernevenoy, whence its present name, and enlarged in 1660; Mme de
Sevigne afterwards resided there. The national archives are stored
in the Hotel Soubise, a mansion of the early 18th century with
19th-century additions, standing on the site of a house built by Olivier de
Clisson in 1370. It was afterwards added to by the family of Guise and rebuilt by Francois de Rohan, duke of Soubise. The palace
of Cardinal Mazarin,
augmented in modern times, contains the Bibliotheque Nationale. The
Palais de l'Institut, formerly the College Mazarin, dates from the
last half of the 17th century; it is the seat of the academies (except the
Academy of Medicine, which
occupies a modern building close to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts) and
of the Bureau des Longitudes, the great national astronomical
council. The Military School overlooking the Champ de Mars is a
fine building of the 18th century. The huge Sorbonne buildings date from the latter years
of the 19th century with the exception of the church, which
belonged to the college as reconstructed by Richelieu. The
astronomical observatory, through the centre of which runs the meridian of Paris, is a
splendidly equipped building erected under Louis XIV., according to
the designs of Claude Perrault. The Ecole des Beaux-Arts (facing
the Louvre on the left bank of the Seine), with its interesting
collections, partly occupies the site of an Augustine convent and comprises the old
Hotel Chimay. It was erected
from 1820 to 1838 and added to later. The most striking feature is
the facade of the principal building designed by F. L. J. Duban.
The courtyard contains part of the facade of the Normanchateau of Gaillon (16th century), which was
destroyed at the Revolution, and the portal of the chateau of Anet (erected by Philibert Delorme in
1548) has been adapted as one of the entrances. The Grand Palais
des Beaux-Arts, where horse-shows, &c., as well as annual
exhibitions of paintings and sculptures are held, and the Petit
Palais des Beaux-Arts, which contains art collections belonging to
the city, date from 1897 - 1900. Both buildings stand close to the
north end of the Pont Alexandre III.

The Bourse, built in
imitation of an ancient temple, dates from the first half of the
19th century; the Tribunal of Commerce and the Palais du Trocadero,
built for the exhibition of 1878, are both imposing buildings of
the latter half of that period, to which also belongs the Hotel des
Postes et Telegraphes.

Among the numerous historic mansions of Paris a few demand
special mention. The so-called Maison de Francois I. (on the Cours
la Reine overlooking the Seine) is a small but beautifully
decorated building erected at Moret in 1527 and re-erected in Paris
in 1826. In the St Gervais quarter are the Hotel de Beauvais of the latter half
of the 17th century and the HOtel Lamoignon, built after 1580 for Diane de
France, duchess of Angouleme, both of which have handsome
courtyards; in the same quarter is the HOtel de Sens, of the 15th century, residence of the
archbishops of Sens, whose province then included the diocese of
Paris. The HOtel Lambert on
the Ile St Louis, built by L. Levau in the 17th century for Nicholas Lambert and
afterwards inhabited by Mme du Chatelet and Voltaire and George Sand, has a
magnificent staircase
and many works of art. The HOtel de Sully, built for the duke of
Sully from 1624 to 1630, is in the Rue St Antoine and has an
interesting courtyard. Of the fine mansion of the dukes of Burgundy the only relic is a
tower of the early 15th century built by Jean Sans Peur.

Theatres, eec. - Of the theatres of Paris four - the
Opera, the Opera-Comique, the Theatre Francais and the Odeon -
receive state subventions, amounting in all to 51,000 per annum.
The Opera (entitled the National Academy of Music) was originally
founded in 1671 by Pierre Perrin, from whom the management was
taken over by J. B. Lully. After several changes of locale, it was
eventually transferred from the Rue Le Peletier to the present operahouse. The
building, which covers 24 acres, is one of the finest theatres in
the world. The process of erection, directed by Charles Garnier, lasted from
1861 to 1875 and cost nearly 12 million sterling. The front is decorated on the ground
storey with allegorical groups (Music by Guillaume; Lyrical Poetry by
Jouffroy; Lyrical Drama by Perraud; and Dancing by Carpeaux) and
allegorical statues. Surmounting its angles are huge gilded groups
representing music and poetry, and above it appears the
dome which covers the auditorium. Behind that rises the vast pediment above the stage
decorated at the corners with Pegasi by Lequesne. On the summit of
the pediment an Apollo, raising aloft his lyre, is seen against the sky. The interior is
decorated throughout with massive gilding, flamboyant scroll-work, statues, paintings, &c. The
grand vestibule, with
statues of Lulli, Rameau, Gluck and Handel, the grand staircase,
the avant foyer or corridor leading to the foyer, and
the foyer or crush-room itself are especially noteworthy.
The last is a majestic apartment with a ceiling decorated with fine painting by Paul
Baudry. The auditorium is seated for 2156; its ceiling is
painted by J. E. Lenepveu. Behind the stage is the foyer de la
danse or green-room for the ballet, adorned with large allegorical panels
and portraits of the most eminent danseuses.

The Theatre Francois or Comedie Francaise was formed in 1681
under the latter name by the union of Moliere's company with two
other theatrical companies of the time. The name Theatre Francais
dates from 1791, when part of the company headed by the tragedian
Talma migrated to the south-west wing of the Palais Royal, which
the company, reunified in 1799, has since occupied. Both the
Theatre Francais and the less important Odeon, a building of 1782
twice rebuilt, close to the Luxembourg garden, represent the works
of the classical dramatists and modern dramas both tragic and
comic. The Opera-Comique, founded in the early 18th century,
occupies a building in the Boulevard des Italiens reconstructed
after a fire in 1887. Serious as well as light opera is performed
there.

Other theatres well known and long established are the Gymnase
(chiefly comedy), the Vaudeville and the Porte
St Martin (serious drama and comedy), the Varietes and the Palais
Royal (farce and vaudeville); and the theatres named after and
managed by Sarah
Bernhardt and Rejane, the Theatre Antoine, the Gaite and the Ambigu may also be mentioned. The
finest concerts in Paris are those of the Conservatoire de Musique
et de Declamation (Rue du Faubourg Poissonniere), while the
Concerts Lamoureux and the Concerts Colonne are also of a high
order. Musical and local performances of a more popular kind are
given at the music
halls, cafes concerts and cabarets
artistiques, with which the city abounds.

Paris is the chief centre for sport in France, and the principal societies for
the encouragement of sport have their headquarters in the city.
Among these may be mentioned the Societe d'encouragement pour
l'amelioration des races de chevaux en France (associated with
the Jockey Club), which is the
chief authority in the country as regards racing, and the Union
des societes francaises de sports athletiques, which comprises
committees for the organization of athletics, football, lawn tennis and amateur sport generally. The Racing Club de
France, the Stade
francais and the Union athletique du premier arrondissement are the chief
Parisian athletic clubs. Race meetings are held at Longchamp and
Auteuil in the Bois de Boulogne, and at Chantilly, Vincennes, St Cloud, St Ouen,
MaisonsLaffitte and other places in the vicinity.

Museums

Some of the more important museums of Paris require notice. The
richest and most celebrated occupies the Louvre. On the ground
floor are museums (I) of ancient sculpture, containing such treasures as the
Venus of Milo, the Pallas of Velletri (the most beautiful of all statues of
Minerva), the colossal group
of the Tiber, discovered at Rome
in the 14th century, &c.; (2) of Medieval and Renaissance
sculpture, comprising works of Michelangelo, Jean Goujon, Germain Pilon,
&c., and rooms devoted to early Christian antiquities and works
by the Della
Robbia and their school; (3) of modern French sculpture, with
works by Puget, the brothers Coustou Coysevox, Chaude, Houdin, Rude, David
of Angers, Carpeaux,; (4) of
Egyptian sculpture and inscriptions; (5) of antiquities from Assyria, Palestine, Phoenicia and other parts of Asia; (6) of engravings.

On the first floor are (I) the picture galleries, rich in works
of the Italian painters,
especially of Leonardo da Vinci (including his Mona Lisa), Raphael, Titian and Paolo Veronese; of the Spanish
masters Murillo is best represented; and there are numerous works
by Rubens, Van Dyck and Teniers, and by Rembrandt and Holbein. The examples of French art form about
one-third of the collection, and include (I) the collection
bequeathed in 1869 by Dr La Caze (chiefly works of the 18th
century); (2) a collection of ancient bronzes; (3) a collection of
furniture of the 17th and 18th centuries; (4) a rich museum of
drawings by great masters; (5) a museum of Medieval, Renaissance
and modern art pottery, objects in bronze, glass and ivory, &c.; (6) the Rothschild collection of
objects of art; (7) smaller antiquities from Susiana, Chaldaea and Egypt; (8) a
collection of ancient pottery embodying the Campana collection
purchased from the Papal government in 1861; (9) the royal jewels
and a splendid collection of enamels in the spacious Apollo gallery
designed by Charles Lebrun. On the second floor are French pictures
of the 19th century, the Thomy-Thiery art-collection bequeathed in
1903, and the marine, ethnographical and Chinese museums. The
Pavillon de La
Tremoille contains a continuation of the Egyptian museum and
antiquities brought from Susiana by Augustus De Morgan between 1897 and
1905. A museum of decorative art occupies the Pavillon de
Marsan.

The museum of the Luxembourg, installed in a; building near the
palace occupied by the senate, is devoted to works of living
painters and sculptors acquired by the state. They remain there for
ten years after the death of the artists, that the finest may be
selected for the Louvre.

The Cluny museum occupies the old mansion of the abbots of that
order (see above). It contains about II,000 examples of Medieval
and Renaissance art-sculptures in marble, wood and stone, ivories,
enamels and mosaics, pottery and porcelain, tapestries, bronzes, specimens of
goldsmith's work, both religious and civil, including nine gold crowns of the 7th century found
near Toledo, Venetian glass,
furniture, iron-work,
state carriages, ancient boots and shoes and pictures.

The Carnavalet museum comprises a collection illustrating the
history of Paris. The Petit Palais des Beaux-Arts contains
artcollections belonging to the city (especially the Dutuit
collection). The house of Gustave Moreau, Rue Rochefoucauld, is
now a museum of his paintings, and that of Victor Hugo, Place des
Vosges, contains a collection of objects relating to the poet.

The Trocadero Palace contains a museum of casts illustrating the
progress of sculpture, chiefly that of France, from the I ith to
the 18th century, it also possesses a collection of Khmer
antiquities from Cambodia
and an ethnographical museum. In the same neighbourhood are the
Guimet museum, containing the collections of Oriental pottery, of
objects relating to the Oriental religions and of antiquities
presented to the state in 1885 by Emile Guimet of Lyons; and the Galliera museum, erected by the
duchess of Galliera and containing a collection of tapestries and
other works of art belonging to the city. The Cernuschi Oriental
museum, close to the Monceau Park, was bequeathed to the city in
1895 by M. Cernuschi.

The collection of MSS., engravings, medals and antiques in the
Bibliotheque Nationale are important, as also are the industrial
and machinery exhibits of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers.
For libraries see Libraries.

Population

Paris is divided into twenty arrondissements. Only the first
twelve belonged to it previous to 1860; the others correspond to
the old suburban communes then annexed. The first four
arrondissements occupy the space on the right of the river,
extending from the Place de la Concorde to the Bastille, and from
the Seine to the line of the Grands Boulevards; the 5th, 6th and
7th arrondissements lie opposite them on the left side; the 8th,
9th, Toth, nth and 12th surround the first four arrondissements on
the north; the 13th, Toth and 15th are formed out of the old
suburban communes of the left side; and the 16th, 17th, 18th, T9th
and 10th out of the old suburban communes of the right side.

The growth of the population during the T9th century is shown in
the following table, which gives the population present on the census day, including the
population comptee a part, i.e. troops, inmates of
hospitals, prisons, schools, &c.

[MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

Years.

Population.

Years.

Population.

1801

547,756

1866

1,825,274

1817

713,966

1872

1,851,792

1831

785,862

1876

1,988,806

1836

899,313

1881

2,239,928

1841

935,261

1886

2,260,945

1846

1,053, 8 97

1891

2,424, 705

1851

1,053,262

1896

2,511,629

1856

1,174, 34 6

1901

2,660,559

1861

1.696.141

1906

2.722,731

Below is shown the population of the arrondissements separately
(in 1906), together with the comparative density of population therein. The most thickly
populated region of Paris comprises a zone stretching northwards
from the Ile de la Cite and the Ile St Louis to the fortifications,
and including the central quarters of St Gervais with 400
inhabitants to the acre, Ste Avoie with 391 inhabitants to
the acre, and Bonne-Nouvelle with 406
inhabitants to the acre. The central arrondissements on the north
bank, which (with the exception of I., the Louvre) are among the
most densely populated, tended in the latter part of the 19th
century to decrease in density, while the outlying arrondissements
(XII.-XX.), which with the exception of Batignolles and Montmartre
are comparatively thinly populated, increased in density, and this
tendency continued in the early years of the 20th century.

The birth-rate, which diminished steadily in the 19th century is
low-on an average 54,000 births per annum (1901-1905) or 20'2 per
moo inhabitants as compared with 3r1 in 1851-1855. The death-rate
also is low, 48,000 deaths per annum (1901-1905), averaging 17'9
deaths per woo inhabitants. This is accounted for by the fact that
Paris is pre-eminently a town of adults, as the following figures,
referring to the year 1908, show: Inhabitants under I year of age „
from I to 19 years of age .

20 „ 39 „ „ 4 0 „ 59 „ „ . 663,435 of 60 years and over..
223,836 „ „ unknown age 9,018 In these circumstances there is
nothing remarkable in the annual number of marriages in Paris
(26,000), a high marriage rate (9.8 per moo) for the total number
of inhabitants, but a low one (28.4 per 1000) compared with the
number of marriageable persons.

A large number of the inhabitants (on an average 636 out of
every 1000) are not Parisians by birth. The foreign nationalities
chiefly represented are Belgians, Germans, Swiss, Italians,
Luxembourgers, English, Russians, Americans, Austrians, Dutch,
Spaniards. The Belgians, Germans and Italians, mostly artisans,
live chiefly in the industrial districts in the north and east of
the city. The English and Americans, on the other hand, congregate
in the wealthy districts of the Champs Elysees and Passy.

Municipal Administration.-Each arrondissement is
divided into four quarters, each of which nominates a member of the
municipal council. These 80 councillors, together with 21
additional councillors elected by the cantons of the rest of the
department, form the departmental council. The chief functionaries
of the arrondissement are a mayor (maire) and three deputies
(adjoints) appointed by the president. The mayors act as
registrars, draw up electoral and recruiting lists and superintend
the poor-relief of their arrondissement. There is a justice
of the peace (juge de paix) nominated by the
government in each arrondissement. There is no elective mayor of
Paris: the president of the municipal council, who is nominated by
his colleagues, merely acts as chairman of their meetings. When
occasion requires, the function of mayor of Paris is discharged by
the prefect of Seine. The
municipal council discusses and votes the budget of the city, scrutinizes the
administrative measures of the two prefects and deliberates on
municipal affairs in general. The prefect of Seine and the prefect
of police (both magistrates named by the government, but each with
a quite distinct sphere of action) represent the executive
authority as opposed to the municipal council, which latter has no
power, by refusing a vote of credit, to stop any public service the
maintenance of which legally devolves on the city: in case of such
refusal the minister of the interior may officially insert the
credit in the budget. In like manner he may appeal to the head of
the state to cancel any
decision in which the council has exceeded its legal functions.

The prefecture of Seine comprises the following departments
(directions), subdivided into bureaux:- I.
Municipal affairs, including bureaux for the supervision of city
property, of provisioning, of cemeteries, of public buildings,
&c.

2. Departmental affairs (including the bureau concerned with the
care of lunatics and foundlings).

3. Primary education.

4. Streets and public works, including the bureau of water,
canals and sewers, and the bureau of public thoroughfares,
promenades and lighting.

5. Finance.

The administrative functions. of the prefect necessitate a large
technical staff of engineers, inspectors, &c., who are divided
among the various services attached to the departments.
There are also a number of councils and committees on special
branches of public work attached to the prefecture (commission
des logements insalubres, de statistique municipale, &c.).
The administration of the three important departments of the
octroi, poor-relief (assistance publique) and pawnbroking (the
mont-depiete) is also under the control of the
prefect.

The prefecture of police includes the whole department of Seine
and the neighbouring communes of the department of Seine-et-Oise-Meudon, St Cloud, Sevres and Enghien. Its sphere embraces the apprehension and
punishment of criminals (police judiciaire), general
police-work (including political service) and municipal policing.
The state, in view of the non-municipal functions of the Paris
police, repays a proportion of the annual 41,107.676,995.1,108,340
budget which this prefecture receives from the city. The budget of
the prefect of police is voted en bloc by the municipal
council.

Besides numerous duties consequent on the maintenance of order,
the inspection of weights and measures, authority
over public spectacles, surveillance of markets and a
wide hygienic and sanitary authority belong to the sphere of this
prefect. In the last connexion mention may be made of an important
body attached to the prefecture of police - the Conseil d'Hygiene
Publique et de Salubrite of the department of the Seine, composed
of 24 members nominated by the prefect of police and 17 members
called to it in virtue of their office. To it are referred such
questions as the sources from which to obtain drinking-water for
the town, the sanitary measures to be taken during important works,
the work connected with the main sewers for the cleaning of the
Seine and the utilization of the sewage water, the health of
workpeople employed in factories, the sanitary condition of the
occupants of schools and prisons, questions relating to the
disinfection of infected districts, the heating of public vehicles and dwellings, the
conveyance of infected
persons, night shelters, &c. Board of health (commissions
d'hygiene) in each of the twenty arrondissements act in co-operation with
this control council. The municipal police, consisting of brigades
of gardiens de la paix, are divided among the
arrondissements in .each of which there is an officier de
paix in command. There are besides six brigades in reserve,
one attached to the central markets, another entrusted with the
surveillance of cabs, while the others are held in readiness for
exceptional duties, e.g. to reinforce the arrondissement
brigades at public ceremonies or in times of disorder. In nearly
every quarter there is a commissaire de police, whose
duties are of a semi-legal nature; the police require his sanction
before they can commit an arrested individual to prison, and he
also fulfils magisterial functions in minor disputes, &c.

Finance

The chief item of ordinary
expenditure is the service of the municipal debt, the total of
which in 1905 was nearly £125,000,000. Its annual cost rose from
£722,000 in 1860 to £3,5 8 3, 000 in 1875 and £4,826,000 in 1905.
In the latter year the other chief items of expenditure were: Poor
relief.. £1,490,000 Prefecture of police 1,448,000 Primary
instruction 1,206,000 Streets and roads. 916,000 Water and drainage
579,000 Collection of octroi. .. .. 471,000 The general total of
ordinary expenditure was £14,192,000, and of ordinary and
extraordinary expenditure £16,995,000.

The chief of the ordinary sources of revenue arc: Octroi
(municipal customs) £4,351,000 Communal centimes, dog tax and other special taxes. 3,268,000 Revenue
from gas company 969,000 Water rate
and income from canals. .. .. 943,000 Public vehicles. .. 614,000
State contribution to, and receipts of prefecture of police 514,000
Revenue from public markets.. 367,000 The total of ordinary revenue
was £14,365,000, and of all revenue, ordinary and extraordinary,
£25,426,000.

Communications

Passenger-transport is in the hands of companies. The ordinary
omnibuses are the property of the Compagnie Generale des Omnibus, founded in 1855, which
has a charter conferring a monopoly until 1910 in return for a payment of
£80 per annum for each vehicle. The organization of the omnibus
service is under the supervision of the prefect of the Seine. Since
1906 motor-driven omnibuses have been in use. The Compagnie
Generale owns a number of tramways, and there are several other tramway companies. The cab companies, the chief of which are
the Compagnie Generale des Voitures and the Compagnie Urbaine, have
no monopoly. The use of the taximeter is general and motor-cabs are
numerous. Cabs pay a license fee and
are under the surveillance of the prefect of the Seine as regards
tariff and the concession of
stands. The steamers (bateaux-omnibus) of the Compagnie
Generale des Bateaux Parisiens ply on the Seine between Charenton
and Suresnes.

The great railways of France, with the exception of the Midi
railway, have terminal stations in Paris. The principal stations of
the northern, eastern and western systems (that of the latter known
as the Gare St Lazare) lie near the outer boulevards in the
northcentre of the city; the terminus of the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee
railway is in the south-east, close to the right bank of the Seine;
opposite to it, on the left bank, is the station du Quai
d'Austerlitz, and on the Quai d'Orsay the Gare du Quai d'Orsay,
both belonging to the Orleans railway. The Gare Montparnasse, to
the south-west of the Luxembourg, is used by the western and the
state railways. Other less important stations are the Gare de
Vincennes (line of the eastern railway to Vincennes), the Gares du
Luxembourg and de Paris-Denfert (line of the Orleans railway to
Sceaux and Limours), and the Gare des Invalides (line of western
railway to Versailles).

Railway communication round Paris is afforded by the Chemin de
Fer de Ceinture, which has some thirty stations along the line of
ramparts or near it. The Metropolitain, an electric railway begun
in 1898, and running chiefly underground, has a line traversing
Paris from east to west (Porte Maillot to the Cours de Vincennes)
and a line following the outer boulevards; within the ring formed
by the latter there are transverse lines.

Streets

The total length of the thoroughfares of Paris exceeds 600 m.
For the most part, and especially in the business and industrial
quarters where traffic is heavy and incessant, they are paved with
stone, Yvette sandstone
from the neighbourhood of Paris being the chief material. Wood and
macadam come next in importance to stone, and there is a small
proportion of asphalte roadway. The upkeep and cleansing is under
the supervision of a branch of the department of public works
(service technique de la voie publique et de l'eclairage),
and for this purpose the city is divided into sections, each
comprising two or three arrondissements. All streets having a width
of 25 ft. or more are planted with rows of trees, chestnuts and
planes being chiefly used for this purpose, and in many of the wide
thoroughfares there are planted strips down the middle.

The upkeep (exclusive of cleansing) of the thoroughfares cost
about £500,000, towards which the state, as usual, contributed
£120,000 and the department £16,000. In the same year the cleansing
cost about £450,000. The original cost of paving a street is borne
by the owners of the property bordering it; but in the
case of avenues of exceptional width they bear only a proportion of the outlay. Payments are
exacted in return for the right to erect newspaper kiosks, &c.,
to place chairs and tables on the footways and similar
concessions.

Water

The water and sewage system of Paris is supervised by a branch
of the public works department (bureau des eaux, canaux et
assainissement). The water supply comprises a domestic supply
of spring water and a supply for industrial and street cleansing
purposes, derived from rivers and artesian wells. The domestic supply,
which averaged 55,000,000 gallons daily in 1905, has three sources
of origin: 1. The springs of the Dhuis, to the east of Paris,
whence the water is conveyed by an aqueduct 82 1n. in length to a reservoir in
the quarter of Menilmontant.

2. The springs of the Vanne, south-east of Paris, whence the
water comes by an aqueduct 108 m. in length to a reservoir near
Montsouris Park. The springs of the Loing and Lunain, south-east of
Paris, also supply the Montsouris reservoir.

3. The springs of the Avre, near Verneuil, to the west of the city, the
aqueduct from which is 63 m. in length and ends at the St Cloud
reservoir.

In addition, filtering installations at the pumping station of
Ivry, St Maur and elsewhere make it possible to supplement the
domestic supply with river water in hot summers.

Water for public and industrial purposes is obtained (1) from
pumping stations at Ivry and other points on the banks of the
Seine, and at St Maur on the Marne; (2) from the Ourcq canal, which
starts at Mareuil on the Ourcq and ends in the Villette basin; (3)
from artesian wells and the
aqueduct of Arcueil from
Rungis, the latter being of trifling importance. The water is
stored in reservoirs in the higher localities of the city, which
for the purposes of distribution is divided into zones of altitude;
thus the water from the Vanne, stored at the Montsouris reservoir
at an altitude of only 260 ft., is supplied to the central and
lowest part of the city. The upper parts of the quarters of
Montmartre, Belleville
and Montrouge, being too high to benefit by the supply from the
ordinary reservoirs, are supplied from elevated reservoirs, to
which the water is pumped by special works.

The water is distributed throughout the city by two systems: the
low or variable pressure, carrying the river water for use in the
streets, courts and industrial premises; the high pressure, taking
the spring water to the various floors of buildings, and supplying
hydraulic lifts, drinking fountains and fire-plugs. The total
length of pipes is nearly 1600 m. The water arrives in all cases
from two different directions, so that in case of accident the interruptions of
the supply may be reduced to a minimum. Consumers are supplied by
meter (compteur) at a price of 35 centimes the cubic metre (domestic supply) and at a
minimum charge of 16 centimes for river water. In its dealings with
individuals the municipality is represented by a company
(Compagnie generale des eaux), which acts as a collecting
agent and receives a commission
on the takings. Its charter expires at the end 'of 1910. In 1905,
for the first time, the gross
takings reached £800,000.

Drainage

The drainage system of Paris comprises four main collectors,
with a length in all of nearly 20 m.; 27 m. of secondary collectors
and several hundred miles of ordinary sewers. Its capacity is such
that the Seine (except in certain cases of exceptional pressure,
such as sudden and violent storms) is kept free from sewage
[[[Municipal Administration]] water, which is utilized on sewage
farms. The larger sewers, which vary between 9 and 20 ft'. in
width, are bordered by ledges, between which the water runs, and
are cleansed by means of slides exactly fitting the channel and
mounted on wagons or boats propelled by the force of the stream. Of
the main collectors, that serving the north-eastern quarters of the
city and debouching in the Seine at St Denis is the longest (72
m.). The other main sewers converge at Clichy, on the right bank of the Seine, where a
powerful elevator forces the sewage partly across the bridge,
partly through a tunnel acting as a syphon below the river-level,
to the left bank. Thence part of it is distributed over the estate
of Gennevilliers, from which it returns purified, after having
fertilized the plots, to the Seine. At Colombes a second elevator drives the surplus
unused sewage to the hills above Argenteuil (right bank), where
begins a conduit extending westwards. This conveys a portion of the
sewage to a third elevator at Pierrelaye, whence it is distributed
on the hills of Mery and the remainder to the Parc d'Acheres (left
bank), the irrigation
fields of Carrieres-sous-Poissy (right bank), and finally those of
Mureaux, opposite Meulan. Certain parts of Paris lie too low for
their drains to run into the main sewers, and special elevators are required to
raise the sewage of the districts of Bercy, Javel and the Cite. The
sewers are used as conduits for water-pipes, gas-pipes, telegraph and telephone wires and
pneumatic tubes.

Lighting

Gas-lighting in Paris is in the hands of a company whose
operations are supervised and directed by municipal engineers. The
company pays to the municipality an annual sum of £8000 for the
privilege of laying pipes in the streets and 2 centimes for every
cubic metre of gas consumed; in addition, the profits of the
company, after a fixed dividend has been paid on the stock, are
divided with the municipality. The company is bound to supply gas
at 30 centimes per cubic metre to private consumers and at half
that price for public services. In 1905 the total sum paid by the
company amounted to nearly £i,000,000. It was provided that on the
expiration of its charter the plant should be made over to the
municipality. Electric light is supplied by a number of companies,
to each of which in return for certain payments a segment
(secteur electrique) of the city is assigned, though the
concession carries with it no monopoly; the municipality has an electrical station of its
own beneath the central markets.

Law and Justice (see France: Justice, for an account of the
judicial system of the country as a whole). - Paris is the seat of
four courts having jurisdiction over all France: (1) the Tribunal
des Conflits, for settling disputes between the judicial and
administrative authorities on questions as to their respective
jurisdiction; (2) the Council of State, which includes a section
for cases of litigation between private persons and public
departments; (3) the Cour des Comptes; and (4) the Cour de
Cassation. The first three sit in the Palais Royal, the fourth in
the Palais de Justice, which is also the seat of (1) a cour
d'appel for seven departments (seven civil chambers, one
chamber of appeal for the correctional police, one chamber for
preliminary proceedings); (2) a cour d'assises; (3) a
tribunal of first instance for the department of Seine, comprising
seven chambers for civil affairs, four chambers of correctional
police; (4) a police court where each juge de paix
presides in his turn assisted by a coinmissaire de police.
Litigations between the departmental or municipal administrations
and private persons are decided by the conseil de
prefecture. Besides these courts there are conseils de
prud'hommes and a tribunal of commerce. The conseils de
prud'hommessettle
differences between workmen and workmen, or between workmen and
masters; the whole initiative, however, rests with the parties.
There are four of these bodies in Paris (for the metal trades, the chemical trades, the textile
trades and building industries), composed of an equal number of
masters and men. The tribunal of commerce, sitting in a building
opposite the Palais de Justice, is composed of business men elected
by the " notables " of their order, and deals with cases arising
out of commercial transactions; declarations of bankruptcy are made
before it; it also acts as registrar of trademarks and of articles of association of
companies; and as court of appeal to the conseils de
prud'hommes. Prisons. - There are three places of detention in
Paris - the Depot of the
prefecture of police (in the Palais de Justice), where persons
arrested and not released by the commissaries of police are
temporarily confined, the Conciergerie or maison de
justice, for the reception of prisoners accused of crimes, who
are there submitted to a preliminary examination before the
president of the court of assizes, and the Sante (near the Place
Denfert-Rochereau), for prisoners awaiting trial and for remanded
prisoners. The old prisons of Mazas, Ste Pelagie and La
Grande-Roquette, the demolition of which was ordered in 1894, have
been replaced by the prison of Fresnesles-Rungis for condemned
prisoners. The prisoners, kept in solitary confinement, are divided
into three groups: those undergoing short sentences, those
sentenced to hard labour while awaiting transference to their final
place of detention or to sentences over a year, and sick prisoners
occupying the central infirmary of the prison. The Petit Roquette
(occupied by children) was replaced by the agricultural and
horticultural colony of
Montesson, inaugurated in 1896.

Education (see also France). - In 1905 there were 170 public
ecoles maternelles (kindergartens) with 57,000 pupils, and
48 private schools of the kind with 7800 pupils, besides a certain
number of .ecoles enfantines, exclusively managed, as are
the ecoles maternelles, by women, and serving as a link between the latter and the
ecoles primaires, for timid and backward children of from
6 to 8 years of age. There were 374 public primary schools with
173,000 pupils, while over 63,000 children were educated in private
primary schools. Subsidiary to the primary schools are the
caisses des ecoles (school treasuries), which give
clothing, &c., to indigent children and maintain the
cantines scolaires for the provision of hot mid-day meals;
the classes de garde and the garderies, which
look after children beyond the ordinary school hours; the
classes de vacances, school camps and school colonies for
children during the holidays; and the internats primaires,
which for a small payment board and lodge children whose parents or
guardians are unable to do so satisfactorily.

The higher primary schools (ecoles primaires
superieures), which give a course of 3 or 4 years, number 86
for boys (College Chaptal,' ecoles, J. B. Say, Turgot,
Colbert, Lavoisier, Arago) and two for girls (Sophie Germain and Edgar Quinet).
Supplementary courses take the place of these schools for children
who can afford two years at most for schooling after leaving the
primary school. Side by side with the higher primary school, the
teaching in which has a commercial rather than an industrial bias, are the ecoles
professionelles, technical schools for the training of
craftsmen. The Ecole Diderot trains pupils in woodand iron-working;
the Ecole Germain Pilon teaches practical drawing, and the Ecole
Barnard Palissy teaches applied art; the Ecole Boulle trains
cabinet-makers, and the Ecole Estienne teaches all the processes connected
with book-production. The school of physics and chemistry imparts both
theoretical and practical knowledge of these sciences. The Ecole
Dorian is a school of the same type as the Ecole Diderot, but is
intended for very poor children, who are received from the age of
seven and boarded and lodged. Six ecoles menagerestrain girls in the duties and
employments of their sex. The
municipality also provides gratuitous popular courses in scientific
and historical subjects at the Hotel de Ville, and there are
numerous private associations giving courses of instruction (the
Philotechnic Association, the Polytechnic Association, the Union
francaise de la jeunesse, &c.). Teachers for the
elementary primary schools are recruited from two training colleges
in the city.

Secondary and Higher Education

There are 13 lycees for boys and a municipal college - the
College Rollin. These give classical and modern courses, and
usually have classes preparing pupils for one or more of the
government schools. For girls there are five lycees.

The five faculties of medicine, law, science, literature and Protestanttheology, and the higher
school of pharmacy, form
the body of faculties, the association of which is known as the
University of Paris. The faculties of science and
literature, together with their library, are established at the
Sorbonne, which is also the seat of the academie, of which
Paris is the centre, and of the Ecole des chartes. The
faculty of medicine with its laboratories (ecole pratique)
occupies separate buildings near the Sorbonne. The law school is
also close to the Sorbonne. Of the 12,600 students at the
university in 1905-1906 some 1260 were foreigners, Russians and
Rumanians being most numerous among the latter. The faculty of law
is the most largely attended, some 6000 students being enrolled
therein. The College de France, founded by Francis I. and
situated opposite the Sorbonne, gives instruction of a popular kind
to adults of the general public; the various branches of learning
are represented by over 40 chairs. The Museum d'histoire
naturelle gives instruction in the natural sciences; the
Ecole pratique des hautes etudes, whose students are
instructed at the Sorbonne and other scientific establishments in
the city, has for its object the encouragement of scientific
research. In addition, there are several great national schools
attached to various ministries. Dependent on the ministry of
education are the Ecole normale superieure, for the
training of teachers in lycees; the Ecole des chartes
(palaeography and the use of archives); the Ecole speciale des
langues orientales, for the training of interpreters; the
Ecole nationale et speciale des beaux-arts (painting,
sculpture, architecture, &c.), in the various departments of
which are conferred the prix de Rome, entitling their
winners to a four years' period of study in Italy; the Conservatoire national de musique
et de declamation (music and acting), which also confers a
grand prix and possesses a fine library and collection of
musical instruments; the Ecole nationale des arts
decoratifs (art applied to the artistic industries); the
Ecole du Louvre, for the instruction of directors of museums.
Depending on the ministry of war are the Ecole
polytechnique, which trains military, governmental and civil
engineers; the Ecole superieure de guerre (successor of
the officers' training school, founded in 1751) for advanced
military studies. Attached to the ministry of commeice and industry
are the Ecole centrale des arts et manufactures for the
training of industrial engineers, works managers, &c.; the
Conservatoire des arts et métiers, which has a rich museum
of industrial inventions and provides courses in science as applied
to the arts. The Institut national agronomique, a higher
school of scientific agriculture, is dependent on the ministry
of agriculture, and the Ecole coloniale for the
instruction 1 The College Chaptal has a wider scope than the higher
primary schools; it has in view general culture rather than
commercial aptitude, and also prepares students for the great
scientific schools (ecole des mines, ecole polytechnique,
&c.). both of natives of French colonies and of colonial
functionaries, on the ministry of the colonies. The Ecole
nationale des pouts et chaussees for the training of
government engineers, and the Ecole nationale superieure des
mines for mining
engineers, are under the minister of public works. Of free
institutions of higher education the most prominent are the
Catholic.institute, with faculties of law and theology and
schools of advanced literary and scientific studies, the
Pasteur institute, founded by Pasteur in 1886 and famous
for the treatment of hydrophobia and for its
research-laboratories, and the school of political science which
prepares candidates for political and governmental careers. The two
latter receive state subvention. There are numerous private
associations giving courses of instruction, the more important
being the Philotechnic Association, the Polytechnic Association and
the Union francaise de la jeunesse. Among the numerous learned
societies of Paris the first in importance is the Institut de
France (see Academies).
The French Association for the advancement of the sciences, founded in
1872, is based on the model of the older British society, and, like
it, meets every year in a different town.

In art Paris has long held a leading place. The Societe des
Artistes frangais holds an annual salon or exhibition in May and
J une at the Palais d'Industrie. It is open to
artists of all nationalities. Works are selected and awards
(including the Prix de Rome) made by a jury of experts selected by the exhibitors. The
society was founded in 1872, but the salon takes its name
from the academy exhibitions, which, first held in the Palais Royal
in 1667, were transferred to the Salon Carre in the Louvre in 1669.
As a result of dissension over the awards of 1889, the society of
fine arts (Societe
Nationale des Beaux-Arts) established a separate salon, in
the Champ de Mars, in May, June and July. There is also a Societe
du Salon d'Automne.

The administration of public charity is entrusted to a
responsible director, under the authority of the Seine prefect, and
assisted by a board of supervision, the members of which are
nominated by the president. The funds at his disposal are derived
(1) from the revenue of certain estates, houses, farms, woods, stocks, shares; (2) from taxes on
seats in the theatres (one-tenth of the price), balls, concerts,
the mont de piete, and allotments in the
cemeteries; (3) from the municipal subsidy; (4) from other sources (including
voluntary donations). The charges on the administration consist of
(I) the treatment of the sick in the hospitals; (2) the lodging of
old men and of incurables in the hospices; (3) the support
of charity children; (4) the distribution of out-door relief
(secours a domicile) by the bureaux de
bienfaisance; (5) the dispensation of medical assistance a
domicile. The doctors, surgeons, chemists, both resident and
non-resident, connected with the numerous hospitals, are all
admitted by competitive examination. They are assisted by three
grades of students, internes (who receive a salary), externes and
stagiaires (probationers).

Of the hospices and similar institutions, the following
are the chief: Bicetre (men), less than a mile south of the
fortifications; La Salpetrihre (women), Ivry (both sexes);
maisons de retraite (for persons not without resources)
Issy, La
Rochefoucauld, Ste Perine; fondations (privately
endowed institutions) - Brezins at Garches (for ironworkers),
Devillas, Chardon-Lagache, Lenoir-Jousseran, Galignani
(booksellers, printers, &c.), Alquier-Debrousse; and sections
for the insane - Bicetre (men), Salpetriere (women), these being
distinct from the ordinary departmental asylums controlled by the
prefect.

Foundlings and orphans are sent to the Hospice des enfants assistes, which also
receives children whose parents are patients in the hospitals or
undergoing imprisonment. This institution is not intended as a
permanent home. Infants are not kept in the institution, but are
boarded out with nurses in the country; the older ones are boarded
out with families or placed in technical schools. Up to thirteen
years of age the children are kept at the expense of the department
of Seine, after which they are apprenticed.

The following establishments in or near Paris belong to the
nation and are dependent on the ministry of the interior: The
QuinzeVingts gives shelter to the 300 blind for whom it was founded
by St Louis, and gives outdoor assistance besides. The blind asylum for the young
(Institution des jeunes aveugles) has 250 pupils of both
sexes. The deaf-mute institution (Institution nationale des
sourds-muets) is for boys only, and they are generally paid
for by the state, the departments and the communes. The Charenton
asylum is for the insane. Those of Vincennes (for male patients)
and Le Vesinet (for female patients) take in convalescents from the
hospitals. The Vacassy asylum at Charenton is for workmen
incapacitated by accident. The Hotel des invalides is for
old and infirm soldiers. Private bodies also maintain a great
number of institutions.

Religion

Some 75% of the population of Paris is Roman
Catholic. The department of Seine forms the diocese of the archbishop of Paris, and
the city is divided into 70 parishes. It has the important higher
ecclesiastical seminary of
St Sulpice, two lower seminaries and others for training the clergy
for missionary and colonial work. Paris is also the seat of the
central council of the Reformed Church and of the executive
committee of the General Synod
of the Lutheran Church, and forms a consistory of both these churches, whose
adherents together number about 90,000. There are also some 50,000
Jews, Paris being the seat of the
Grand Rabbinate of France and of the central consistory.

Industries

The larger manufacturing establishments of Paris comprise
engineering and repairing works connected with the railways,
similar private works, foundries and sugar refineries. Government works are the tobacco factories of Gros
Caillou and Reuilly, depending on the ministry of finance; the
national printing
establishment, under the ministry of justice; the mint (with a collection of medals and coins),
established in an 18th century building close to the Pont Neuf and
under the control of the ministry of finance; and the famous tapestry factory and
dye-works (with a tapestry museum) of the Gobelins, under the
minister of education. The list of minor establishments is varied,
most of them being devoted to the production of the so-called
articles de Paris (feathers, artificial flowers, dolls, toys and
fancy goods in general), and carrying the principle of the division
of labour to an extreme. The establishments which rank next to
those above mentioned in the number of workmen are the
pharmaceutical factories, the gasworks, the printing-offices,
cabinet-makers' workshops, tailoring and dressmaking establishments
(very numerous) and hat
factories.

The textile industries hardly exist in Paris; there are a few
tanneries on the Bievre, but the leather industry is chiefly represented by the
production of morocco
leather goods classed as articles de Paris. Mention may be
made here of the bureaux de placement gratuit, maintained
by the municipality, where those in search of work or workers are
put in touch with one another.

Markets

The slaughter-houses, cattle-yards, and with few exceptions the
markets of Paris, belong to the municipality. The chief slaughter-house
is the abattoir
general of La Villette, covering a space of 47 acres in the
extreme north-east of the city on the bank of the Canal de l'Ourcq;
adjoining it, with an area of about 55 acres, on the opposite bank
of the canal, are the municipal cattle-yards and markets, which
have accommodation for many thousands of
animals, and are connected with the Ceinture railway so that the
cattle-trucks are brought straight into the market. Cattle-traders
and butchers pay dues for the use of these establishments. There
are other less extensive slaughter-yards at Vaugirard. Most of the
cattle come from Calvados,
Maine-et-Loire, Vaucluse, Nievre, Loire-Inferieure and Orne; sheep
from Seine-et-Marne, Aveyron, Aisne, Seine-et-Oise, Lot and Cantal; pigs from Loire-Inferieure and other
western departments; calves from Loiret, Eure-et-Loir and others of the northern
departments. Dead meat, game, poultry, fruit, vegetables, fish and the other food-supplies have their centre
of wholesale distribution at the Halles Centrales, close to the
Louvre, which comprise besides a large uncovered space a number of
pavilions of iron and glass covering some 10 acres. Close to the
Halles is the Bourse de Commerce, which is a centre for
transactions in alcohol, wheat, rye and oats, flour, oil and sugar; and a market for flour, the
trade in which is more important than that in wheat, is held in the
Place St Germain l'Auxerrois, sales being effected chiefly by the
medium of samples. Most of the wines and spirits consumed in Paris pass through the
entrepots of Bercy and the wine-market on the Quai St Bernard, the first
specially connected with the wine-trade, the second with the brandy-trade. In addition, there
are other provision markets in various quarters of the city, owned
and supervised by the municipality, as well as numerous
flowermarkets, bird-markets, a
market for horses, carriages, bicycles and dogs, &c. Two fairs
are still held in Paris - the foire aux jambons in the
Boulevard Richard Lenoir during Holy week, and the foire au pain d'epices in the Place de la
Nation and its vicinity at Easter time. Market and market-places are placed
under the double supervision of the prefect of Seine and the
prefect of police. The former official has to do with the
authorization, removal, suppression, and holding of the markets,
the fixing and collecting of the dues, the choice of sites, the
erection and maintenance of buildings, and the location of
vehicles. The latter maintains order, keeps the roads clear, and
watches against fraud. There is
a municipal laboratory, where any purchaser can have the provisions
he has bought analysed, and can obtain precise information as to
their quality. Spoiled provisions are seized by the agents of the
prefecture.

The Chamber of Commerce occupies a building close to the
Bourse.

Bibl10graphy.-P. Joanne, Dictionnaire geographique et
administratif de la France, vol. v. (Paris, 1899), s.v. "
Paris," a comprehensive and detailed account from the
topographical, administrative and historical points of view; M.
Block, Dictionnaire de l'administration francaise, vol.
ii. (Paris, 1905), s.v. ' ` Paris "; Annuaire statistique de la
ville de Paris, issued by the Service de la statistique
municipale; Baedeker's Paris; T. Okey, The Story
of Paris (London, 1906); W. F. Lonergen, Historic Churches
of Paris (London, 1896); G. Pessard, Nouveau dictionnaire
historique de Paris (Paris, 1904); E. Fournier, Paris a
travers les ages (Paris, 1876-1882); C. Normand, Nouvel
itineraire-guide artistique et archeologique de Paris (Paris,
1889), &c. (R. TR.) History. - At its first appearance
in history there was nothing to foreshow the important part which
Paris was to play in Europe
and in the world. An island in the Seine, now almost lost in the
modern city, and then much smaller than at present, was for
centuries the entire site. The sole importance of the town lay in
its being the capital of a similarly insignificant Gallic people,
which navigated the lower course of the Seine, and doubtless from
time to time visited the coasts of Britain. So few were its inhabitants that they
early put themselves under the protection of their powerful
neighbours, the Senones, and
this vassalship was the source of the political dependence of Paris
on Sens throughout the Roman period, and of a religious
subordination which lasted till the 17th century. The capital did
not at once take the name of the Parisii, whose centre it was, but
long kept that of Lucetia, Lucotetia or Lutetia, of which Lutece is
the generally recognized French form.

During the War of Gallic Independence, after being subjugated by
Caesar,. who even in 53 B.C. made their territory the meetingplace
of deputies from all Gaul, the
Parisii took part in the great rising of the year 52, at the same
time separating their cause from that of the Senones, who were held
in check by Caesar's lieutenant, Labienus. They joined their forces to the army
commanded by an Aulercian, the old Camulogenus, which in turn was
to unite with the Bellovaci to crush Labienus advancing from Sens
to attack the Parisians. Having marched along the right bank of the
river till opposite Lutetia, Labienus learned that the Bellovaci
were in arms, and, fearing to find himself between two armies at a
distance from his headquarters, he sought to get rid of
Camulogenus, who, posted on the left bank, endeavoured to bar his way. The bridges had been cut
and the town burned by order of the Gallic chief. By means of a
stratagem Labienus drew his opponent up the river to the district
now occupied by the Jardin des Plantes, and quietly by night
crossed the Seine lower down in the neighbourhood of Grenelle, near
a place which Caesar calls Metiosedum, identified, but not
conclusively, with Meudon. The Gauls, retracing their steps a
little, met the Romans and
allowed themselves to be routed and dispersed; their leader fell in
the fore-front of the battle. Still unsubdued, the Parisii were
called upon by the general council assembled in Alesia to furnish eight thousand men to help in
raising the siege of that city. It is doubtful whether they were
able to contribute the whole of this contingent, when their
powerful neighbours the Bellovaci managed to send only two thousand
of the ten thousand demanded of them. This was their last effort,
and after the check at Alesia they took no part in the desperate
resistance offered by the Bellovaci.

Lutetia was somewhat neglected under the Roman emperors of the
first centuries. Its inhabitants continued quietly carrying on
their river traffic, and devoted part of their wealth to the
maintenance of a great temple to Jupiter built on the site of the present
cathedral of Notre Dame. It is not known at what date Christianity was
introduced into the future capital of France; but it is probable,
judging by the use of the title " city," that Lutetia was the see
of one of the earliest of the bishoprics of Gallia Celtica. The
name of the founder of the church is known, but a keen controversy,
not yet settled, has recently been raised with regard to the date
when the first Roman missionary, St Dionysius or Denis, reached the banks of the
Seine, along with his two deacons, Rusticus and Eleutherius. A pious
belief, which, in spite of its antiquity, has its origin in nothing
better than parochial vanity, identifies the first-named with
Dionysius the Areopagite, who was converted by St Paul at Athens, and thus takes us back to
the middle of the 1st century of the Christian era. Better founded
in the opinion which dates the evangelization of the city two
centuries later; the regular list of bishops, of whom, after Denis, the most famous
was St Marcel, begins about 250.

Lutetia was in some sort the cradle of Christian liberty, having been the
capital, from 292 to 306, of the mild Constantius Chlorus, who put
an end to persecution in Brittany, Gaul and Spain, over which he ruled.
This emperor fixed his residence on the banks of the Seine,
doubtless for the purpose of watching the Germans without losing
sight of Brittany, where the Roman authority was always unstable;
perhaps he also felt something of the same fancy for Lutetia which
Julian afterwards expressed in
his works and his letters. Be that as it may, the fact that these
two princes chose to live there naturally drew attention to the
city, where several buildings now rose on the left side of the
river which could not have been reared within the narrow boundaries
of the island. There was the imperial palace, the remains of which,
a magnificent vaulted chamber, beside the Hotel de Cluny, are now
known, probably correctly, as Julian's Baths. At some distance up
the river, in the quarter of St Victor, excavations in 1870 and in
1883 laid bare the foundations of the amphitheatre, which was capable of holding
about 10,000 spectators, and thus suggests the existence of a
population of 20,000 to 25,000 souls. Dwelling-houses, villas, and
probably also an extensive cemetery, occupied the slope of the hill of St
Genevieve.

It was at Lutetia that, in 360, Julian, already Caesar, was in
spite of himself proclaimed Augustus by the legions he had more
than once led to victory in Germany. The troops invaded his palace, which,
to judge by various
circumstances of the mutiny,
must have been of great extent. As for the city itself, it was as
yet but a little town (7roXixvn) according to the imperial author
in his Misopogon. The successive sojourns of Valentinian I. and Gratian scarcely increased its
importance. The latest emperors preferred Treves, Arles, and Vienne in Gaul, and, besides, allowed Paris,
about 410, to be absorbed by the powerful Armorican league. When
the patricians, Aetius, Aegidius
and Syagrius, held almost
independent sway over the small portion of Gaul which still held
together, they dwelt at Soissons, and it was there that Clovis fixed himself during the
ten or eleven years between the defeat of Syagrius (486) and the
surrender of Paris (497), which opened its gates, at the advice of
St Genevieve, only after the conversion of the Frankish king. In
508, at the return of his victorious expedition against the south,
Clovis made Paris the official capital of his realm - Cathedram regni constituit, says Gregory
of Tours. He chose as his residence the palace of the Thermae,
and lost no time in erecting on the summit of the hill, as his
future place of interment, the basilica of St Peter and St Paul, which became not long
afterwards the church and abbey of St Genevieve. After the death of
Clovis, in spite of the supremacy granted to the kingdom of Austrasia, or Metz, Paris remained the true
political centre of the various Frankish states, insomuch that the
four sons of Clothaire, fearing the prestige which would attach to whoever of them
might possess it, made it a sort of neutral town, though after all
it was seized by Sigebert,
king of Austrasia, Chilperic, king of Neustria (who managed to keep possession for
some time, and repaired the amphitheatre), and Guntram, king of Burgundy. The last sovereign
had to defend himself in 585 against the pretender Gondovald, whose
ambition aspired to uniting the whole of Gaul under his dominion,
and marching on Paris to make it the seat of the half-barbarian half-Roman
administration of the kingdom of which he had dreamed.

Numerous calamities befell Paris from 586, when a terrible
conflagration took place, to the close of the Merovingian dynasty.
During a severe famineBishop Landry sold the church
plate to alleviate the distress of the people, and it was probably he
who, in company with St Eloi
(Eligius), founded the Hotel Dieu. The kings in the long run almost
abandoned the town, especially when the Austrasian influence under
the mayors of the palace tended to shift the centre of the Frankish
power towards the Rhine.

Though the Merovingian period was for art a time of the deepest
decadence, Paris was nevertheless adorned and enriched by pious
foundations. Mention has already been made of the abbey of St
Peter, which became after the death of Clovis the abbey of St
Genevieve. On the same side of the river, but in the valley, Childebert, with the
assistance of Bishop St Germain,. founded St Vincent, known a little later as St
Germain-des-Pres, which was the necropolis of the Frankish kings before St
Denis. On the right bank the same king built St Vincent le Rond
(afterwards St Germain l'Auxerrois), and in La Cite, beside the
cathedral of St Etienne, the basilica of Notre Dame, which excited
the admiration of his contemporaries, and in the 12th century
obtained the title of cathedral. Various monasteries were erected
on both sides of the river, and served to group in thicklypeopled
suburbs the population, which had grown too large for the
island.

The first Carolingian, Pippin the Short, occasionally lived at Paris,
sometimes in the palace of Julian, sometimes in the old palace of
the Roman governors of the town, at the lower end of the island;
the latter ultimately became the usual residence. Under Charlemagne
Paris ceased to be capital; and under Charles the
Bald it became the seat of mere counts. But the invasions of
the Northmen attracted general attention. to .the town, and showed
that its political importance could no longer be neglected. When
the suburbs were pillaged and burned by the pirates, and the city
regularly besieged in 885, Paris was heroically defended by its "
lords," and the emperor Charles the Fat felt bound to
hasten from Germany to its relief. The pusillanimity which he
showed in purchasing the retreat of the Normans was the main cause of his deposition in
887, while the courage displayed by Count Odo, or Eudes, procured
him the crown of France; Robert, Odo's brother, succeeded him; and,
although Robert's son, Hugh the
Great, was only duke of France and count of Paris, his power
counterbalanced that of the last of the Carolingians, shut up in Laon as their capital.

With Hugh Capet in
987 the capital of the duchy of France definitively became the
capital of the kingdom, and in spite of the frequent absence of the
kings, several of whom preferred to reside at Orleans, the town
continued to increase in size and population, and saw the
development of those institutions which were destined to secure its
greatness. Henry I. founded
the abbey of St Martin-des-Champs, Louis VI. that of St Victor, the mother-house
of an order, and. a nursery of literature and theology. Under Louis VII. the royal domain
was the scene of one of the greatest artistic revolutions recorded
in history: the Romanesque style of architecture was exchanged for
the Pointed or Gothic, of which Suger, in his reconstruction of the basilica of
St Denis, exhibited the earliest type. The capital could not remain
aloof from this movement; several sumptuous buildings were erected;
the Romanesque choir of St Germaindes-Pres was thrown down to give
place to another more spacious and elegant; and when, in 1163, PopeAlexander III. had solemnly consecrated
it, he was invited by Bishop Maurice de Sully to lay the first stone of
Notre Dame de Paris, a cathedral on a grander scale than any
previously undertaken. Paris still possesses the Romanesque nave of
St Germain-des-Pres, preserved when the building was rebuilt in the
12th century; the Pointed choir, consecrated in 1163; and the
entire cathedral of Notre Dame, which, completed sixty years later,
underwent various modifications down to the beginning of the 14th
century. The sacristy is
modern; the site previous to 1831 was occupied by the episcopal
palace, also built by Maurice de Sully, who by a new street had
opened up this part of the island. It was Louis VII. also who
granted to the Templars
the piece of marshland on the left bank of the Seine on which the
Paris Temple,' the headquarters of the order in Europe, was built
(see Templars).

Philip Augustus may be considered the second founder of Paris.
He seldom quitted it save for his military expeditions, and he
there built for himself, near St Germain l'Auxerrois, the Louvre,
the royal dwelling par excellence, whose keep was the
official centre of feudalism. He created or organized a regular
system of administration, with its headquarters at Paris; and under
his patronage the public lectures delivered at Pre-auxCleres were
regulated and grouped under the title of a university in 1200.

This university, the most famous and flourishing in Christendom,
considerably augmented the local population, and formed as it were
a new town on the left side of the river, where.the great fortified
precincts of the Templars, the important abbeys of Ste Genevieve,
St Germain-des-Pres and St Victor, and a vast ' After the
suppression of the Templars in 1312 the Temple was assigned to the
Knights of St John. It was used as
a state prison in the 14th century, and as barracks in the 16th. The church and the
greater part of the other buildings survived in the 17th century.
At the Revolution the keep (1265 or 1270) alone survived of the
Templars' buildings. It was here that Louis XVI. and the royal
family were imprisoned. It became a place of pilgrimage for the
Royalists, and was, in consequence, pulled down under the Empire
in 1811. Its site is occupied by the Place du
Temple.

Carthusian monastery already stood. Colleges were erected to
receive the students of the different countries, and became the
great meeting-place of the studious youth of all Europe.

The right side of the river, where commerce and industry had
taken up their abode, and where
the Louvre, the abbey of St Martin, and a large number of secondary
religious establishments were already erected, became a centre of
activity at least as important as that on the left. The old
suburbs, too, were now incorporated with the town and enclosed in
the new line of fortifications constructed by Philip Augustus,
which, however, did not take in the great abbeys on the left side
of the river, and thus obliged them to build defensive works of
their own.

Philip Augustus issued from the Louvre a celebrated order, that
the streets of the town should be paved. Not far from his palace,
on the site of the present Halles Centrales, he laid out an
extensive cemetery and a market-place, which both took their name
from the Church of the Innocents, a building of the same reign,
destroyed at the Revolution. Fountains were placed in all the
quarters. As for the lighting of the town, till the close of the
16th century the only lamps were those in front of the madonnas at
the street corners. But the first " illumination " of Paris occurred under
Philip Augustus: on his return from a victorious expedition to Flanders in 1214 he was
welcomed by the Parisians as a conqueror; and the public rejoicings
lasted for seven days, " interrupted by no
night," says the chronicler, alluding to the torches and lamps with
which the citizens lighted up the fronts of their houses. Ferrand,
count of Flanders, the traitor vassal, was dragged behind the king to the
dungeons of the Louvre.

In '226 there was held at Paris a council which, by
excommunicating Raymond VII., count of Toulouse, helped to prepare the way for the
most important treaty which had as yet been signed in the capital.
By this treaty (April 12, 1229) the regent, Blanche of
Castile, the widow of Louis VIII., obtained from Raymond VII. a
great part of his possessions, while the remainder was secured to
the house of Capet through the
marriage of Alphonse of
Poitiers, brother of St Louis, with Jeanne, the heiress of Languedoc.

In affection for his
capital St Louis equalled, or even surpassed, his grandfather
Philip, and Paris reciprocated his goodwill. The head of the administration was
at that time the provost of
Paris, a judiciary magistrate and police functionary whose
extensive powers had given rise to the most flagrant abuses. Louis IX. reformed this
office and filled it with the judge of greatest integrity to be
found in his kingdom. This was the famous Etienne Boileau, who showed such
vigilance and uprightness that. the capital was completely purged
of evildoers; the sense of security thus produced attracted a certain
number of new inhabitants, and, to the advantage of the public
revenue, increased the value of the trade. It was Etienne Boileau
who, by the king's express command, drew up those statutes of the
commercial and industrial gilds
of Paris which, modified by the necessities of new times and the
caprice of princes, remained in force till the Revolution.

St Louis caused a partial restoration of St Germain l'Auxerrois,
his parish church (completed in the 15th century, and deplorably
altered under Louis XV.); and besides preferring the palace of La
Cite to the Louvre, he entirely rebuilt it, and rendered it one of
the most comfortable residences of his time. Of this edifice there
still remain, among the buildings of the present Palais de Justice,
the great guard-room, the kitchens with their four enormous
chimneys, three round
towers on the quay, and, one
of the marvels of the middle ages, the Sainte Chapelle,
erected in 1248 to receive the crown of thorns sent from Constantinople.
This church, often imitated during the 13th and 14th centuries, is
like an immense shrine in open work; its large windows contain
admirable stained glass of its own date, and its paintings and
sculptures (restored in the 19th century by Viollet-le-Duc) give a
vivid picture of the religious beliefs of the middle ages. It has a
lower storey ingeniously arranged, which served as a chapel for the
palace servants. The Sainte Chapelle was designed by Pierre de Montereau, one of the most
celebrated architects of his time, to whom is attributed another
marvel still extant, the refectory of the abbey of St Martin, now
occupied by the library of the Conservatoire des Arts et des
Metiers. This incomparable artist was buried in the abbey of St
Germain-des-Pres, where, too, he had raised magnificent buildings
now no longer existing. Under St Louis, Robert de Sorbon, a common
priest, founded in 1253 an
unpretending theological college which afterwards became the
celebrated faculty of the Sorbonne, whose decisions were wellnigh
as authoritative as those of Rome.

The capital of France had but a feeble share in the communal
movement which in the north characterizes the 11th, 12th and 13th
centuries. Placed directly under the central power, it was never
strong enough to force concessions; and in truth it did not claim
them, satisfied with the advantages of all kinds secured for it by
its political position and its university. And, besides, the
privileges which it did enjoy, while they could be revoked at the
king's pleasure, were of considerable extent. Its inhabitants were
not subjected to forced labour or arbitrary imposts, and the
liberty of the citizens and their commerce and industry were
protected by wise regulations. The university and all those closely
connected with it possessed the fullest rights and liberties. There
was a municipal or bourgeoismilitia, which rendered the greatest service to
Philip Augustus and St Louis, but afterwards became an instrument
of revolt. The communal administration devolved on echevins or
jures, who, in conjunction with the notables, chose a nominal
mayor called provost of the merchants (prevot des
marchands). The powers of this official had been grievously
curtailed in favour of the provost of Paris and his lieutenants,
named by the sovereign. His main duties were to regulate the price
of provisions and to control the incidence of taxation on merchandise. He was the chief
inspector of bridges and public wells, superintendent of the river police, and
commander of the guard of the city walls, which it was also his
duty to keep in repair. And, finally, he had jurisdiction in
commercial affairs until the creation of the consular tribunals by
the chancellor Michel L'Hopital. The violent
attempts made by Etienne Marcel in the 14th century, and
those of the communes of 1793 and 1871, showed what reason royalty had to fear too great
an expansion of the municipal power at Paris.

The town council met in the 13th and 14th centuries in an
unpretending house on Ste Genevieve, near the city walls on the
left side of the river. The municipal assemblies were afterwards
held near the Place de Greve, on the right side of the river, in
the " Maison aux Pilfers," which Francis I. allowed to be replaced
by an imposing hotel de ville.

The last of the direct descendants of Capet, and the first two
Valois kings did little for their capital. Philip the Fair,
however, increased its political importance by making it the seat
of the highest court in the kingdom, the parlement, which he
organized between 1302 and 1304, and to which he surrendered a part
of his cite palace. Under the three sons of Philip the Fair, the
Tour de Nesle, which stood
opposite, on the site now occupied by the buildings of the
Institute, was the scene of frightful orgies, equally celebrated in
history and romance. One of the queens, who, if the chronicles are
to be trusted, took part in these expiated her crimes in
Château-Gaillard, where she was strangled in 1315 by order of her
husband, Louis X. During the
first part of the War of the Hundred Years, Paris escaped being
taken by the English, but felt the effects of the national
misfortunes. Whilst destitution excited in the country the revolt
of the
Jacquerie, in the city the miseries of the time were attributed
to the vices of the feudal system, and the citizens seemed ready
for insurrection. The provost of the merchants, Etienne Marcel,
equally endowed with courage and intellect, sought to turn this double
movement to account in the interest of the municipal liberties of
Paris and of constitutional guarantees. The cause which he
supported was lost through the violence of his own acts. Not
content with having massacred two ministers under the very eyes of
the dauphin Charles, who was
regent whilst his father John lay captive in London, he joined the Jacquerie, and
was not afraid to call into Paris the king of Navarre, Charles the Bad, a notorious
firebrand, who at that time was making common cause with the
English. Public sentiment, at first favourable to Marcel's schemes,
shrank from open treason. A
watch was set on him, and, at
the moment when, having the keys of the town in his possession in
virtue of his office, he was preparing to open one of the gates, he
was assassinated by order of Jean Maillard, one of the heads of the
milice, on the night of the 31st of July 1358. Marcel had
enlarged Philip Augustus's line of fortifications on the right side
of the river, and had begun a new one.

When he became king in 1364, Charles V. forgot the outrages he
had suffered at the hands of the Parisians during his regency. He
robbed the Louvre to some extent of its military equipment, in
order to make it a convenient and sumptuous residence; his
open-work staircases and his galleries are mentioned in terms of
the highest praise by writers of the time. This did not, however,
remain always his favourite palace; having built or rebuilt in the
St Antoine quarter the mansion of St Paul or St Pol, he was
particularly fond of living in it during the latter part of his
life, and it was there that he died in 1380. It was Charles V. who,
in conjunction with the provost of Paris, Hugues Aubriot, erected
the famous Bastille to protect the St Antoine gate as part of an enlarged scheme of
fortification. A library which he founded - a rich one for the
times - became the nucleus
of the national library. With the exception of some of the upper
portions of the Sainte Chapelle, which were altered or
reconstructed by this prince or his son Charles VI., there are no remains of the
buildings of Charles V.

The reign of Charles VI. was as disastrous for the city as that.
of his father had been prosperous. From the very accession of the
new king, the citizens, who had for some time been relieved by a
great reduction of the taxes, and had received a promise of further
alleviation, found themselves subjected to the most odious fiscal
exactions on the part of the king's uncle, who was. not satisfied
with the well-stored treasury of Charles V., which he had
unscrupulously pillaged. In March 1382 occurred what is called the
revolt of the " Maillotins " (i.e. men with mallets). Preoccupied
with his expedition against the Flemings, Charles VI. delayed
putting down the revolt, and for the moment. remitted the new
taxes. On his victorious return on the 10th of January 1383, the
Parisians in alarm drew up their forces in front of the town gates
under the pretext of showing their sovereign what aid he might
derive from them, but really in. order to intimidate him. They were
ordered to retire within the walls and to lay down their arms, and
they obeyed. The king and his uncles, having destroyed the gates,
made their way into Paris as into a besieged city; and with the
decapitation of Desmarets, one of the most faithful servants
of the Crown, began a series of bloody executions. Ostensibly
through the intercession of the regents an end was put to that
species of severities, a heavy fine being substituted, much larger
in amount than the annual value of the abolished taxes. The
municipal administration was suspended for several years, and its
functions bestowed on the provost of Paris, a magistrate nominated
by the Crown.

The calamities which followed were due to the weakness. and
incapacity of the government, given over, because of the madness of
Charles VI., to the intrigues of a wicked queen and of princes who
brought the most bloodthirsty passions to the service of their
boundless ambition. First came the rivalry between the dukes of
Orleans and Burgundy, brought to an end in 1407 by
assassination of the former. Next followed the relentless struggle
for supremacy between two hostile parties: the Armagnacs on one
side, commanded by Count Bernard of Armagnac (who for a brief period had the title
of constable), and
supported by the nobles and burgesses; and on the other side the
Burgundians, depending on the common people, and. recognizing John
the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, as their head. The mob was headed by a skinner at the Hotel Dieu
called. Simon
Caboche, and hence the name Cabochiens was given to
the Burgundian party in Paris. They became masters of Paris in 1412
and 1413; but so violent were their excesses that the most timid
rose in revolt, and the decimated bourgeoisie managed by a bold
stroke to recover possession of the town. The Armagnacs again
entered Paris, but their intrigues with England and their tyranny rendered them odious
in their turn; the Burgundians were recalled in 1418, and returned
with Caboche and a formidable band of pillagers and assassins.
Perrinet Leclerc, son of a bourgeois guard, secretly opened the
gates to them one night in May. The king resided in the Hotel St
Paul, an unconscious spectator of those savage scenes which the princes Louis and John,
successively dauphins, were helpless to prevent.

The third dauphin, Charles, afterwards Charles VII., managed to put an end to the
civil war, but it was by a crime
as base as it was impolitic - the assassination of John the
Fearless on the bridge of Montereau in 1419. Next year a treaty,
from the ignominy of which Paris happily escaped, gave a daughter
of Charles VI. to Henry V.
of England, and along with her, in spite of the Salic law, the crown of
France. The king of England made his entry into Paris in December
1420, and was there received with a solemnity which ill concealed
the misery and real consternation of the poor people crushed by
fifteen years of murders, pillage and famine. Charles VI. remained
almost abandoned at the Hotel St Paul, where he died in 1422,
whilst his son-in-law went to hold a brilliant court at the Louvre
and Vincennes. Henry V. of England also died in 1422. His son Henry VI., then one year old,
came to Paris nine years later to be crowned at Notre Dame, and the
city continued under the government of the duke of Bedford till his death in
1435.

The English rule was a mild one, but it was not signalized by
the execution of any of those works of utility or ornament so characteristic of
the kings of France. The choir of St Severin, however, shows a
style of architecture peculiarly English, and Sauval relates that
the duke of Bedford erected in the Louvre a fine gallery decorated
with paintings. Without assuming the mission of delivering Paris,
Joan of Arc,
remaining with Charles VII. after his coronation at Reims, led him towards the capital; but
the badly conducted and abortive enterprise almost proved fatal to
the Maid of Orleans, who was severely wounded at the assault of the gate of St
Honore on the 8th of September 1429. The siege having been raised,
Charles awaited the invitation of the Parisians themselves upon the
defection of the Burgundians and the surrender of St Denis. The St
Jacques` gate was opened by the citizens of the guard to the
constable de Richemont l on the 13th of April 1436; but the solemn entry of the king did not
take place till. November of the following year; subsequently
occupied by his various expeditions or attracted by his residences
in Berry or Touraine, he spent
but little time in Paris, where he retired either to the Hotel St
Paul or to a neighbouring palace, Les Tournelles, which had been
acquired by his father.

Louis XI. made equal use of St Paul and Les Tournelles, but
towards the close of his life he immured himself at
Plessis-lesTours. It was in his reign, in 1469, that the first
French printingpress was set up in the Sorbonne. Charles VIII.
scarcely left Plessis-les-Tours
and Amboise except to go to
Italy; Louis XII.
alternated between the castle
at Blois and the palace of Les
Tournelles, where he died on the 1st of January 1515.

Francis I. lived at Chambord, at Fontainebleau, at St Germain, and at
Villers-Cotterets; but he proposed to form at Paris a residence in
keeping with the taste of the Renaissance. Paris had remained for
more than thirty years almost a stranger to the
artistic movement begun between 1498 and 1 soo, after the Italian
expedition. Previous to 1533, the date of the commencement of the
Hotel de Ville and the church of St Eustache, Paris did not
possess, apart from the " Court of Accounts," any important
building in the new style. Between 1527 and 1540 Francis I.
demolished the old Louvre, and in 1541 Pierre Lescot began a new
palace four times as large, which was 1 Arthur, earl of Richmond, afterwards Arthur III., duke of Brittany.

not finished till the reign of Louis XIV. The buildings were not
sufficiently advanced under Henry II. to allow of his leaving Les
Tournelles, where in 1559 he died from a wound received at a tournament. His widow, Catherine de' Medici,
immediately caused this palace to be demolished, and sent her three
sons - Francis II., Charles IX. and Henry III. - to the
unfinished Louvre. Outside the line of the fortifications she laid
the foundations of the Château des Tuileries as a residence for
herself.

Of the three brothers, it was Charles IX. who resided most at
the Louvre; it was there that in 1572 he signed the order for the
massacre of St
Bartholomew. Henry III. remained for the most part at Blois, and
hardly came to Paris except to be witness of the power of his enemies, the
Guises.

Taking advantage of the absence of the kings, the League had
made Paris a centre of opposition. The municipal militia were
restored and reorganized; each of the 16 quarters or
arrondissements had to elect a deputy for the central council,
which became the council, or rather faction, of The Sixteen, and for four years,
from 1587 to 1591, held the city under a yoke of iron. Henry III.,
having come to the Louvre in 1588, unwillingly received there the
duke of Guise, and while endeavouring to take measures for his own
protection provoked a riot known
as the Day of the Barricades (May 12). It was with difficulty that
he escaped from his palace, which at that time had no communication
with the country, and which Henry IV. afterwards proposed to unite
with the Tuileries in order to provide a sure means of escape in
case of need.

When, after the murder of
the duke of Guise at Blois at the close of 1588, Henry III. desired
to return to Paris, he was not yet master of the city, and was
obliged to besiege it in concert with his presumptive heir, the king of
Navarre. The operations were suddenly interrupted on the 1st of
August 1589, by the assassination of the king, and Henry IV.
carried his arms elsewhere. He returned with his victorious forces
in 1590. This. second siege lasted more than four years, and was
marked by terrible suffering, produced by famine and the tyranny of
The Sixteen, who were supported by the intrigues of the king of
Spain and the violent harangues of the preachers. Even the
conversion of the king did not allay the spirit of fanaticism, for
the king's sincerity was suspected, and the words (which history,
however, fails to substantiate), " Paris is surely worth a mass,
were attributed to him. But after the coronation of the king: at Chartres the commonalty of
Paris, weary of intriguing with strangers and Leaguers, gave such
decided expression to its feelings that those of its leaders who
had kept aloof, or broken off from the faction of The Sixteen
attached themselves to the parlement, which had already evaded the
ambitious designs of the king of Spain; and after various
negotiations the provost of the merchants, L'Huillier, offered the
keys of the city to Henry IV. on the 22nd of March 1594. The king
met no resistance except on the part of a company of German
landsknechts, which was cut in pieces, and the students of the
university,. who, steeped in the doctrines of the League, tried to
hold their quarter against the royal troops, but were dispersed.
The Spanish soldiers who had remained in the town decamped next
day.

Henry IV., who carried on the building of the Louvre, was the
last monarch who occupied it as a regular residence. Attempts on
his life were made from time to time, and at last, on the 14th of
May 1610, he fell under Ravaillac's knife near the market-house in Rue de la
Ferronnerie.

Whether royalty gave it the benefit of its presence or not,
Paris continued all the same to increase in political importance
and in population. Here is the picture of the city presented about
1560 by Michel de Castelnau,
one of the most celebrated chroniclers of the 16th century: " Paris
is the capital of all the kingdom, and one of the most famous in
the world, as well for the splendour of its parlement (which is an
illustrious company of thirty judges attended by three hundred
advocates and more, who have reputation in all Christendom of being
the best seen in human laws and acquainted with justice) as for its
faculty of theology and for the other tongues and sciences, which
shine more in this town than in any other in the world, besides the
mechanic arts and the marvellous traffic which render it very
populous, rich and opulent; in such sort that the other towns of
France and all the magistrates and subjects have their eyes
directed thither as to the model of their decisions and their
political administrations." Castelnau spoke rather as a statesman
and a magistrate, and did not look close enough to see that the
university was beginning to decline. The progress of the sciences
somewhat lessened the importance of its classes, too specially
devoted to theology and literature; the eyes of men were turned
towards Italy, which was then considered the great centre of
intellectual advance; the colleges of the Jesuits were formidable rivals; the triumphs of
Protestantism deprived it of most of the students, who used to flock to it from England, Germany
and Scandinavia; and finally the unfortunate part it played in
political affairs weakened its influence so much that, after the
reign of Henry IV. it no longer sent its deputies to the states-general.

If the city on the left side of the river neither extended its
circuit nor increased its
population, it began in the 16th century to be filled with large
mansions (hotels), and its communi-, cations with the right bank
were rendered easier and more direct when Henry IV. constructed
across the lower end of the island of La Cite the Pont Neuf, which,
though retaining its original name, is now the oldest bridge in
Paris. On the right side of the river commerce and the progress of
centralization continued to attract new inhabitants, and old
villages become suburbs were enclosed within the line of a
bastioned first enceinte, the ramparts of Etienne Marcel being,
however, still left untouched. Although Louis XIII., except during
his minority, rarely stayed much in Paris, he was seldom long
absent from it. His mother, Mary
de' Medici, built the palace of the Luxembourg, which, after being
extended under Louis Philippe, became the seat of the senate.

Louis XIII. finished, with the exception of the eastern front,
the buildings enclosing the square court of the Louvre, and carried
on the wing which was to join the palace to the Tuileries. .Queen
Anne of Austria founded the Val de Grace, the dome of which,
afterwards painted on the interior by Mignard, remains .one of the
finest in Paris. Richelieu built for himself the Palais Royal,
since restored, and rebuilt the Sorbonne, where now stands his
magnificent tomb by Girardon. The
island of St Louis above La Cite, till then occupied by gardens and
meadows, became a populous parish, whose streets were laid out in
straight lines, and whose finest houses still date from the 17th
century. Building also went on in the Quartier du Marais (quarter
of the marsh); and the whole of the Place Royale (now Place des
Vosges), with its curious arcaded galleries, belongs to this
period. "The church of St Paul and St Louis was built by the
Jesuits beside the ruins of the old Hotel St Paul; the church of St
Gervais received a façade which has become in our time too famous.
St Etienne du Mont and St Eustache were completed (in the latter
case with the exception of the front). The beautiful Salle des
Pas-Perdus (Hall of Lost Footsteps) was added to the Palais de
Justice. Besides these buildings and extensions Paris was indebted
to Louis XIII. and his minister Richelieu for three important
institutions - the royal printing press in 1620, the Jardin des
Plantes in 1626, and the French Academy in 1635. The bishopric of
Paris was separated from that of Sens and erected into an
archbishopric in 1623.

As memorials of Mazarin Paris still possesses the College des
Quatre-Nations, erected with one of his legacies immediately after
his death, and since appropriated to the Institute, and the palace
which, enlarged in the 19th century, now accommodates the national
library.

The stormy minority of Louis XIV. was spent at St Germain and
Paris, where the court was held at the Palais Royal. The intrigues
of the prince of Conde, Cardinal de
Retz, and (for a brief space) Turenne resulted in a siege of
Paris, during which more epigrams than balls were fired off; but
the cannon of the Bastille, discharged by order of Mademoiselle de
Montpensier, enabled Conde to enter the city. Bloody riots
followed, and came to an end only with the exhaustion of the
populace and its voluntary submission to the king. Though Louis
XIV. ceased to stay in Paris after he grew up, he did not neglect
the work of embellishment. On the site of the fortifications of
Etienne Marcel, which during the previous hundred years had been
gradually disappearing, he laid out the line of boulevards
connecting the quarter of the Bastille with that of the Madeleine.
Though he no longer inhabited the Louvre (and it never was again
the seat of royalty), he caused the great colonnade to be
constructed after the plans of Claude Perrault. This immense and
imposing facade, 548 ft. long, has the defect of being quite out of
harmony with the rest of the building, which it hides instead of
introducing. The same desire for effect, altogether irrespective of
congruity, appears again in the observatory erected by the same
Perrault, without the smallest consideration of the wise
suggestions made by Cassini.
The Place Vendome, the Place des Victoires, the triumphal gates of
St Denis and St Martin and several fountains, are also productions
of the reign of Louis XIV. The hospital of La Salpetriere, with its
majestically simple dome, was finished by Liberal Bruant: The Hotel
des Invalides, one of the finest institutions of the grand
monarque, was also erected, with its chapel, between 1671 and 1675,
by Bruant; but it was reserved for the architect Hardouin Mansart
to give to this imposing edifice a complement worthy of itself: it was he who
raised the dome, admirable alike for its proportions, for the
excellent distribution of its ornaments, and for its gilded lantern, which rises 344 ft.
above the ground. " Private persons," says Voltaire, " in imitation
of their king, raised a thousand splendid edifices. The number
increased so greatly that from the neighbourhood of the Palais
Royal and of St Sulpice there were formed in Paris two new towns
much finer than the old one." All the aristocracy had not thought fit to take up
their residence at Versailles, and the great geniuses of the
century, Corneille, Racine, La
Fontaine, Moliere, Madame de Sevigne, had their houses in Paris;
there also was the Hotel de Rambouillet, so famous in the literary
history of the 17th century.

The halls of the Palais Royal during the minority of Louis XV.
were the scene of the excesses of the regency; later on the king
from time to time resided at the Tuileries, which henceforward came
to be customarily regarded as the official seat of the monarchy. To
the reign of Louis XV. are due the rebuilding of the Palais Royal,
the " Place " now called De la Concorde, the military school, the
greater part of the church of Ste Genevieve, or Pantheon (a
masterpiece of the architect Soufflot), the church of St Roch, the
palace of the Elysee (now the residence of the president of the
republic), the Palais Bourbon (with the exception of the façade),
now occupied by the chamber of deputies, and the mint, a majestic
and scholarly work by the architect Antoine, as well as the
rebuilding of the College de France.

Louis XVI. finished or vigorously carried on the works begun by
his grandfather. He did not come to live in Paris till compelled by
the Revolution. That historical movement began indeed at Versailles
on the 17th of June 1789, when the statesgeneral were transformed
into a constituent assembly; but the first act of violence which
proved the starting-point of all its excesses was performed in
Paris on the 14th of July 1789 when Paris inaugurated, with the
capture of the Bastille, its " national guard," organized and then
commanded by the celebrated La Fayette. At the same time the
assassination of the last provost of the merchants, Jacques de
Flesselles, gave the opportunity of establishing, with more
extended powers, the mairie (mayoralty) of Paris, which
was first occupied by Bailly, and soon became, under the title of
commune, a political power
capable of effectively counterbalancing the central authority.'
Paris had at that time once more outgrown its limits. The quarter
on the left side of the river had more than doubled its extent by
the accession of the great monasteries, the faubourgs of St Germain
and St Marceau, the Jardin des Plantes, and I Owing to the armed
and organized revolutionary elements in the assemblies of the
Sections, which enabled the revolutionary commune to direct and
control popular emeutes. the whole of Mont Ste Genevieve.
The line of the new enceinte is still marked by a circuit of
boulevards passing from the Champs de Mars at Pont d'Austerlitz by
Place de l'Enfer and Place d'Italie. Similar enlargements, also
marked out by a series of boulevards, incorporated with the town on
the right side of the faubourgs of St Antoine and Poissonniere and
the quarters of La Chaussee d'Antin and Chaillot. In 1784 was
begun, instead of a line of fortifications, a simple customs-wall,
with sixty propylaea or pavilions in a heavy but characteristic
style, of which the finest are adorned with columns or pilasters
like those of Paestum. In
front of the Place du TrOne (now Place de la Nation), which formed
as it were a facade for Paris on the east side, there were erected
two lofty rostral columns bearing the statues of Philip Augustus
and St Louis. Towards the west, the city front was the Place Louis
XV. (Place de la Concorde), preceded by the magnificent avenue of
the Champs Elysees. Between the barriers of ' La Villette and
Pantin, where the highways for Flanders and Germany terminated, was
built a monumental rotunda flanked on the ground floor by four
peristyles arranged as a Greek cross, and in the second storey
lighted by low arcades supported by columns of the Paestum type.
None of these works were completed till the time of the empire. It
was also in the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV., and under
the first republic, that the quarter of La Chaussee d'Antin was
built.

The history of Paris during the Revolutionary period is the
history rather of France, and to a certain extent of the whole
world (see France:
History;French Revolution; and the articles
on the Jacobins and other clubs). During the Consulate hardly
anything of note took place at Paris except the explosion of the
infernal machine directed against Bonaparte on the 24th of December 1800.

The coronation of Napoleon by Pope Pius VII. was celebrated in Notre Dame on the 2nd
of December 1804. Eight years later, during the Russian campaign, the conspiracy of General Malet, happily
suppressed, was on the point of letting loose on all France a
dreadful civil war. The empire, however, was then on the wane, and
Paris was witness of its fall when, after a battle on the heights
of Montmartre and at the barricre de Clichy, the city was
obliged to surrender to the allies on the 30th of March 1814.

For the next two months the city was in the occupation of the
allies and witnessed a hitherto unique assembly of sovereigns and
statesmen. Their deliberations issued on the 30th of May 1814 in
the first treaty of Paris (see Paris, Treaties of, below). So far as the city
itself was concerned, the only permanent loss that it suffered
through the occupation was that of the art treasures with which
Napoleon had enriched it at the expense of other capitals; among
these were many paintings and pieces of statuary from the Louvre,
and the famous bronze horses from Venice, which were taken down from the triumphal
arch of the Carrousel and restored to the facade of St Mark's. The
expressed determination of Blucher and his Prussians to blow up the
Pont de Jena, built to commemorate
Napoleon's crushing victory of 1806, was frustrated by the vigorous
intervention of Wellington and of the emperor Alexander I.

Paris under the Restoration witnessed the revival of religious
ceremonials to which it had long been unaccustomed, notably the
great Corpus
Christiprocession, in which the king himself
carried a candle. Then came
Napoleon's return from Elba (March
1815) and the interlude of the Hundred Days. After Waterloo, though there was fighting round
Paris, there was no effort to defend the city against the allied
armies; for the Parisians had grown thoroughly weary of Napoleon,
and Louis XVIII.,
though he returned " in the baggage train of the enemy," was
received by the populace with rapturous acclamation (see LOUIS XVIII.). The second
treaty of Paris was signed on the 10th of November of the same year
(see below). It left France in the occupation of 150,000 foreign
troops, and the crown and government under the tutelage of a
committee of representatives of the foreign great powers in
Paris.

Paris now became the centre of the royalist reaction, and of a
political proscription which reflected, though without its popular
excesses, the White Terror of the South. The most conspicuous event
of this time was the tragedy of the trial and execution of Marshal
Ney (q.v.). For the rest, the only event of note that occurred in
Paris under Louis XVIII. was the assassination of the duke of Berry
by Louvel on the 13th of February 1820. Ten years later the
revolution of .1830,1 splendidly commemorated by the Column of July
in Place de la Bastile, put Charles X. to flight and inaugurated
the reign of Louis Philippe, a troublous period which was closed by
the revolution of 1848 and a new republic. It was this reign,
however, that surrounded Paris with bastioned fortifications with
ditches and detached forts, the outcome of the warlike fever aroused by the exclusion of
France from the treaty of London of 1840 (see Mehemet Ali). The
republic of 1848 brought no greater quiet to the city than did the
reign of Louis Philippe. The most terrible insurrection was that of
the 23rd-26th of June 1848, distinguished by the devotion and
heroic death of the Archbishop Affre. It was quelled by General
Cavaignac, who then for some months held the executive power.
Prince Louis Napoleon next
became president of the republic, and after dissolving the chamber
of deputies on the 2nd of December 1851, caused himself to be
proclaimed emperor just a year later.

The second empire completed that material transformation of
Paris which had already been begun at the fall of the ancient
monarchy. First came numerous cases of destruction and demolition
caused by the suppression of the old monasteries and of many parish
churches. A number of medieval buildings, civil or military, were
cleared away for the sake of regularity of plan and improvements in
the public streets, or to satisfy the taste of the owners, who
thought more of their comfort or profit than of the historic
interest of their old mansions or houses.

It was under the first empire that the new series of
improvements were inaugurated which have made Paris a modern city.
Napoleon began the Rue de Rivoli, built along this street the wing
intended to connect the Tuileries with the Louvre, erected in front
of the court of the Tuileries the triumphal arch of the Carrousel,
in imitation of that of Septimius Severus at Rome. In the middle of the Place
Vendome was reared, on the model of Trajan's column, the column of
the Grand Army, surmounted by the statue of the emperor. To
immortalize this same Grand Army he ordered from the architect
Pierre Vignon a Temple of Victory, which without changing the form
of its Corinthian peristyle has become the church of the
Madeleine; the entrance to the avenue of the Champs Elysees was
spanned by the vast triumphal arch De l'Etoile (of the star), which owes its celebrity not
only to its colossal dimensions and its magnificent situation, but
also to one of the four subjects sculptured upon its faces - the
Chant du depart or
Marseillaise, one of the masterpieces of Rude and of
modern sculpture. Another masterpiece was executed by David of
Angers - the pediment of the Pantheon, not less famous than
Soufflot's dome. The museum of the Louvre, founded by decree of the Convention on the
27th of July 1793, was organized and considerably enlarged; that of
the Luxembourg was created in 1805, but was not appropriated
exclusively to modern artists till under the Restoration. The
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, due to the Convention, received
also considerable additions in the old priory or abbey of St Martin
des Champs, where the council of the Five Hundred had installed it
in 1798.

Under the Restoration and under the government of July many new
buildings were erected; but, with the exception of the Bourse,
constructed by the architects Brongniart and Labarre, and the
colonnade of the Chamber of Deputies, these are of interest not so
much for their size as for the new artistic tendencies affected in
their architecture. People had grown weary of the eternal
Graeco-Roman compilations rendered 1 Notable in the history of the
city for the discovery by the populace of the effectiveness of
barricades against regular troops. These had been last used in the Fronde.

fashionable by the Renaissance, and reduced under the empire to
mere imitations, in producing which all inspiration was repressed.
The necessity of being rational in architecture, and of taking full
account of practical wants, was recognized; and more suggestive and
plastic models were sought in the past. These were to be found, it
was believed, in Greece; and
in consequence the government under Louis Philippe saw itself
obliged to found the French school at Athens, in order to allow
young artists to study their favourite types on the spot. In the
case of churches it was deemed judicious to revive the Christian
basilicas of the first centuries, as at Notre Dame de Lorette and
St Vincent de Paul; and a little later to bring in again the styles
of the middle ages, as in the ogival church of St Clotilde.

Old buildings were also the object of labours more or less
important. The Place de la Concorde was altered in various ways,
and adorned with eight statues of towns and with two fountains; on
the 25th of October 1836 the Egyptian obelisk, brought at great
expense from Luxor, was erected in the centre. The general
restoration of the cathedral of Notre Dame was voted by the Chamber
in 1845, and entrusted to Viollet-le-Duc; and the palace of the
Luxembourg and the Hotel de Ville were considerably enlarged at the
same time, in the style of the ,existing edifices.

But the great transformer of Paris in modern times was Napoleon
III. To him or to his reign we owe the Grand Opera, the masterpiece
of the architect Gamier; the new Hotel-Dieu; the finishing of the galleries
which complete the Louvre and connect it with the Tuileries; the
extension of the Palais de Justice and its new front on the old
Place Dauphine; the
tribunal of commerce; the central markets; several of the finest
railway stations; the viaduct at Auteuil; the churches of La
Trinite, St Augustin, St Ambroise, St Francois Xavier, Belleville,
Menilmontant, &c. For the first international Paris exhibition
(that of 1855) was constructed the " palace of industry "; the
enlargement of the national library was commenced; the museum of
French antiquities was created by the savant Du Sommerard, and
installed in the old " hotel " built at the end of the 15th century
for the abbots of Cluny.

All this is but the smallest part of the memorials which
Napoleon III. left of his presence. Not only was the city traversed
in all directions by new thoroughfares, and sumptuous houses raised
or restored in every quarter, but the line of the fortifications
was made in 1859 the limit of the city. The area was thus doubled,
extending to 7450 hectares or 18,410 acres, instead of 3402
hectares or 8407 acres. It was otherwise with the population; to
the 1,200,000 inhabitants which Paris possessed in 1858 the incorporation of
the suburban zone only added 600,000.

Paris had to pay dear for its growth and prosperity under the
second empire. This government, which, by straightening and
widening the streets, thought it had effectually guarded against
the attempts of its internal enemies, had not sufficiently defended
itself from external attack, and at the first reverses of 1870
Paris found itself prepared to overthrow the empire, but by no
means able to hold out against the approaching Prussians.

The two sieges of Paris in 1870-71 are among the most dramatic
episodes of its history. The first siege began on the 19th of
September 1870, with the occupation by the Germans of the heights
on the left side of the river and the capture of the unfinished
redoubt of Chatillon. Two days later the investment was complete.
General Trochu, head of the French Government and governor of the
city, had under his command 400,000 men - a force which ought to
have been able to hold out against the 240,000 Germans by whom it
was besieged, had it not been composed for the most part of hurried
levies of raw soldiers with inexperienced officers, and of national
guards who, never having been subjected to strict military
discipline, were a source of weakness rather than of strength. The
guards, it is true, displayed a certain warlike spirit, but it was
for the sole purpose of exciting disorder. Open revolt broke out on
the 31st of October; it was suppressed, but increased the
demoralization of the besieged and the demands of the Prussians.
The partial successes which the French obtained in engagements on
both sides of the river were rendered useless by the Germans
recapturing all the best positions; the severity of winter told
heavily on the garrison,
and the armies in the provinces which were to have co-operated with
it were held in check by the Germans in the west and south. In
obedience to public opinion a great sortie was undertaken; this, in
fact, was the only alternative to a surrender; for, the empire
having organized everything in expectation of victory and not of
disaster, Paris, insufficiently provisioned for the increase of
population caused by the influx of refugees, was already suffering
the horrors of famine. Accidental circumstances combined with the
indecision of the leaders to render the enterprise a failure.
Despatches sent by balloon
to the army of the Loire
instructing it to make a diversion reached their destination too
late; the bridge of Champigny over the Marne could not be
constructed in time; the most advantageous positions remained in
the hands of the Germans; and on the 2nd and 3rd of December the
French abandoned the positions they had seized on the 29th and 30th
of November. Another sortie made towards the north on the 21st of
December was repulsed, and the besieged lost the Avron plateau, the
key to the positions which they
still held on that side. The bombardment began on the 17th of December,
and great damage was done to the forts on the left of the Seine,
especially those of Vanves and Issy, directly commanded by the
Chatillon battery. A third and last sortie (which proved fatal to
Regnault the painter) was attempted in January 1871, but resulted
in hopeless retreat. An armistice was signed on the 27th of January,
the capitulation
on the 28th. The revictualling of the city was not accomplished
without much difficulty, in spite of the generous rivalry of
foreign nations (London alone sending provisions to the value of
80,000).

On the 1st of March the Germans entered Paris. This event, which
marked the close of the siege, was at the same time the first
preparation for the " commune; " for the national guard, taking
advantage of the general confusion and the powerlessness of the
regular army, carried a number of cannon to the heights of
Montmartre and Belleville under pretext of saving them. President
Thiers, appreciating the
danger, attempted on the 18th of March to remove the ordnance; his action was the
signal of an insurrection
which, successful from the first, initiated a series of terrible
outrages by the murder of the two generals, Lecomte and Thomas. The
government, afraid of the defection of the troops, who were
demoralized by failure and suffering, had evacuated the forts on
the left side of the river and concentrated the army at Versailles
(the forts on the right side were still to be held for some time by
the Germans). Mont Valerien happily remained in the hands of the
government and became the pivot
of the attack during the second siege. All the sorties made by the
insurgents in the direction of Versailles (where the National
Assembly was in session from
the 10th of March) proved unsuccessful, and cost them two of their
improvised leaders - Generals Flourens and Duval. The incapacity
and mutual hatred of their chiefs rendered all organization and
durable resistance impossible. On Sunday the 21st of May the
government forces, commanded by Marshal MacMahon, having already
captured the forts on the right side of the river, made their way
within the walls; but they had still to fight hard from barricade to barricade
before they were masters of the city; Belleville, the special Red
Republican quarter, was not assaulted and taken till Friday.
Meanwhile the communists were committing the most horrible
excesses: the archbishop of Paris (Georges Darboy, q.v.), President
J30njean, priests, magistrates, journalists and private
individuals, whom they had seized as hostages, were shot in batches
in the prisons; and a scheme of destruction was ruthlessly carried
into effect by men and women with cases of petroleum
(petroleurs and petroleuses). The Hotel de Ville,
the Palais de Justice, the Tuileries, the Ministry of Finance, the
palace of the Legion of
Honour, that of the Council of State, part of the Rue de Rivoli,
&c., were ravaged by the flames; barrels of gunpowder were placed in
Notre Dame and the Pantheon, ready to blow up the buildings; and
the whole city would have been involved in ruin if the national
troops had not gained a last and crowning victory in the
neighbourhood of La Roquette and Pere-la-Chaise on the 28th of May. Besides the large
number of insurgents who, taken in arms, were pitilessly shot,
others were afterwards condemned to death, to penal servitude, to
transportation; and the survi ,ors only obtained their liberty by
the decree of 1879.

From this double trial Paris emerged diminished and almost
robbed of its dignity as capital; for the parliamentary assemblies
-and the government went to sit at Versailles. For a little it was
thought that the city would not recover from the blow which had
fallen on it. All came back, however - confidence, prosperity, and,
along with that, increasing growth of population and the execution
of great public works. The Hotel de Ville was rebuilt, the school
of medicine adorned with an imposing facade, a vast school of
pharmacy established in the old gardens of the Luxembourg, and
boulevards completed. The exhibition of 1878 was more marvellous
than those of 1855 and 1867, and left a lasting memorial - the
palace of the Trocadero. And the chambers in 1879 considered quiet
sufficiently restored to take possession of their customary
quarters in the Palais Bourbon and the Luxembourg. (A. S.-P.; W. A.
P.) The Universal Exhibition of 1878, destined to show Europe that
France had recovered her material prosperity and moral power,
attracted a large concourse. The number of admissions was about
13,000,000. A grand fete, full of gaiety and enthusiasm, was held
on the 30th of June. This was the first public rejoicing since the
war. The terrible winter of1879-1880was the severest of the
century; the Seine, entirely frozen, resembled a sea of ice. The 14th of July, the anniversary
of the taking of the Bastille, was adopted as the French national
holiday and celebrated for
the first time in 1880. A grand military review was held in the
Bois de Boulogne, at which President Grevy distributed flags to all
the regiments of the army. On the 17th of March 1881 a national loan of a thousand million francs was
issued for the purpose of executing important public works. This
loan was covered fifteen times, Paris alone subscribing for ten
thousand millions. At the time of the legislative elections, on the
21st of August and the 4th of September 1881, several tumults
occurred in the Belleville district, Gambetta, who was a candidate
in the two wards of that district vainly tried to address the electors. The great orator
died in the following year, on the 31st of December, from the
effects of an accident, and his funeral, celebrated in Paris at the
expense of the State, was attended by an immense gathering. A
slight Legitimist agitation followed Gambetta's death. An
unfortunate event occurred on the 29th of September 1883, the day
when the king of Spain, Alphonso XII., returned from his visit to
Berlin, where he had reviewed
the 15th regiment of Prussian Uhlans, of which he was the honorary
colonel. The cries of " Down with the Uhlan ! " with which he
was greeted by the Paris crowd,
gave rise to serious diplomatic incidents. On the 26th of May 1885
the following decree was rendered: " The Pantheon is restored to
its primitive and legal destination. The remains of the great men
who have merited national recognition will be disposed therein."
But it was only on the 4th of August 1899 that the ashes of Lazare
Carnot, Hoche, Marceau, Latour d'Auvergne and Baudin were solemnly
transported to the Pantheon. Victor Hugo's funeral was celebrated
on the 1st of June 1885, and by an urgency vote they were made
national obsequies. It
was decided that the corpse
should be exposed one day and one night under the Arc de Triomphe,
veiled with an immense crape. A
few days before, upon the occasion of the anniversary of the fall
of the Commune, a tumultuous political manifestation had been made
in front of the tomb of the Communists buried in Pere Lachaise
cemetery.

In 1886 the Monarchists renewed their political demonstrations;
the most important one was the reception given by the Count of
Paris at the Galliera mansion on the occasion of the marriage of
his daughter with the King of Portugal. The Count of Paris had invited to
this reception all the foreign ambassadors, and some disturbance
having taken place, the Chamber of Deputies, on the i i th of June
1886, voted a law interdicting sojourn upon French territory to the
Orleanist and Bonapartist pretenders to the throne of France, and
also to their direct heirs. At that epoch Paris was in a state of
agitation and discontent, and various catastrophes occurred. First
of all came the disastrous bankruptcy of a large financial concern
called the Union Generale; then the scandal concerning the traffic in decorations,
in which M. Wilson, son-in-law of M. Jules Grevy, was compromised,
and which eventually led to the resignation of the President;
finally the deplorable Panama
affair profoundly enervated the Parisians, and made them feel the
necessity of shouting for a military master, some adventurer who
would promise them a revenge. All this led to Boulangism. It was by
wild acclamations and frantic shouts that General Boulanger was greeted,
first at the review of the army on the 14th of July, then two days
later at the opening of the Military Club, afterwards at the Winter
Circus, where the Patriots'
League held a mass meeting under the presidency of Paul Deroulede, and finally,
on the 8th of July, at an immense demonstration at the Lyons
railway station, when " le bray'
General " left Paris to take command of the 13th army corps at Clermont
Ferrand. Popular refrains were sung in the streets in the midst
of immense excitement on the 27th of January 1889 at the time of
the election of General Boulanger as deputy for the Seine
department. A majority of 80,000 votes had invested him with an
immense moral authority, and he appeared as though elected as the
candidate of the entire country; but he lacked the necessary
audacity to complete his triumph, and the Government having decided
to prosecute him for conspiracy against the security of the state,
before the Senate acting as a High Court of Justice, he fled with
his accomplices, Rochefort and Dillon. All three were condemned by
default, on the 14th of
August, to imprisonment in a fortified enclosure.

Other events had also troubled this astonishing interlude of
Boulangism. On the 23rd of February 1887 a terrible fire destroyed
the Opera Comique during a performance, and a great many of the audience perished in the
flames. The first performance of Lohengrin, which took place at the Eden Theatre on the 1st of May 1887,
was also the cause of street rioting. In 1888 there were several
strikes. That of the day labourers, which lasted more than a month,
occasioned violent scenes, owing to the sudden death of Emile
Eudes, a Communist, while he was speaking in favour of the strike
at a public meeting. On the 2nd of December there were
manifestations in memory of Baudin, a representative of the people,
killed upon the barricades in 1851 while fighting in the defence of
the Republic. But a calm finally came, and then the Parisians
thought only of celebrating the centenary of the Revolution of 1789 by a
universal exhibition. This exhibition contained a profusion of
marvels such as had never before been seen, and indicated what
enormous industrial progress had been accomplished. Sadi Carnot,
who had succeeded M. Jules Grevy as President of the Republic on
the 3rd of December 1887, officially opened the exhibition on _the
6th of May 1889. Numerous fetes were held in the grounds while the
exhibition lasted. The Eiffel Tower and the illuminated
fountains enraptured the crowd of visitors, while the Rue du Caire,
with its Egyptian donkey-drivers, obtained a prodigious success.
Most of the nations were represented at this exhibition. Germany
alone confined her co-operation to the display of some paintings.
The Shah of Persia, in honour of whom splendid fetes were
organized, and the King of Greece, the Prince of Wales, the Lord Mayor of London, several Russian
grand dukes, Annamite, Tunisian, Moorish, Egyptian and African
princes successively visited the Exhibition. There were 30,000,000
visitors. On the 18th of August a banquet was given in the Palais
de l'Industrie by the Paris Municipal Council to all the mayors in
France, and 15,000 of these officials were present.

In 1890 the duke of Orleans, having attained his majority, came
to Paris to draw for military service with the youngest conscripts
of his class. He was arrested, and placed, first in the
Conciergerie, and later in the prison at Clairvaux, but was released after a few
months' incarceration. The following years were remarkable for more
strikes and several demonstrations by the students, which led in
1893 to conflicts with the police, in one of which a student was
killed. On the 17th of October an enthusiastic welcome was extended
to Admiral Avellan and the
Russian sailors upon their arrival in Paris. It was about this time
that dynamite began to be
used by the Anarchists. After Ravachol, who commenced the sinister
exploits of the " propaganda by acts," it was Vaillant who threw a
bomb into the " Temple of the Laws
" on the 9th of December 1893, and wounded forty-six deputies. Then
there was a succession of these attacks during the two following
months, for Ravachol and Vaillant had found emulators. Henry scattered fright and death
among the peaceable customers of a brasserie, while bombs were
thrown into the doorways and staircases of houses inhabited by
wealthy people. Upon the steps of the Madeleine Church, Parvels,
who was already the author of two dynamite plots, was struck down
by the destructive machine that he was about to throw into the body
of the church. Laurent Tailhade himself, who had celebrated with
his pen the beauty of Vaillant's gesture, was subsequently wounded
by dynamite thrown into the Cafe Foy, where he was lunching.

The visit of the emperor and empress of Russia, on the 5th, 6th and 7th of October 1896,
was celebrated by incomparable fetes. The Rue de la Paix was
decorated with ropes and sails, stretched across the street like
the rigging of a vast
vessel, in honour of the Russian sailors. Nothing could be seen
anywhere except flags, cockades and badges formed of the colours of
the two friendly nations. In the evening there were open-air balls,
with farandoles and orchestras at all the street corners. Popular
enthusiasm was again manifested on the 31st of August, when
President Faure returned from his visit to the Russian court. On
the 4th of May 1897 the terrible conflagration at the Charity Bazaar in the Rue Jean Goujon
threw into mourning one
hundred and forty families of the nobility or the aristocracy of Paris, and
spread sorrow among the class always considerate in its benevolence. Then all
minds were again troubled and disturbances occurred in the streets
for more than two years over the Dreyfus case, dividing the French
people into two camps.

President Faure died suddenly on the 18th of February 1899. The
very day of his funeral, Paul Deroulede and Marcel Habert tried to
make a coup d'etat by urging General Roget to lead his troops, which had formed
part of the guard of honour at the obsequies, against the Elysee.
Immediately arrested and put on trial, Deroulede and Habert were
acquitted by a timorous jury.

M. Emile Loubet, President
of the Senate, was chosen successor to M. Felix
Faure. Upon his return to Paris from the Versailles Congress,
where he had been elected President of the French Republic, he *as
greeted by hisses and cries of " Panama! " cries in no wise
justifiable. Some time afterwards, Jules Guerin, by a desperate
resistance against a summons
of the police to give himself up, made the public believe for two
months in the existence of an impregnable fortress in the Rue
Chabrol, in the very centre of Paris. On the 4th of June there was
a great scandal at the Auteuil Races, which President Loubet had
been, according to custom, invited to attend. He was insulted and
struck by Baron de Christiani, who was encouraged by the young
royalists of the " Oillets
Blanes " Association. A week later, the extraordinary and excessive
police measures taken to prevent a disturbance at the Grand Prix
occasioned the downfall of the Dupuy ministry. M. Waldeck-Rousseau then
formed a cabinet, himself becoming president of the council.
The new premier immediately took energetic measures against the
enemies of the Republic. Compromising documents found in various
domiciliary searches made among the Monarchists and Nationalists
formed the basis of prosecutions before the High Court of Justice.
The trial resulted in the condemnation of Jules Guerin to a term of
imprisonment, and the banishment of Paul Deroulede, Marcel Habert,
Andre Buffet and the Marquis
de Lur Saluces, thereby ridding France of all these promoters of
disorder, and opening a new era of peace, which lasted throughout
the Universal Exhibition of 1900.

This exhibition covered an enormous space, including the slope
of the Trocadero, the Champ de Mars, the Esplanade of the Invalides
and both sides of the Seine bordered by the Rue de Paris and the
Rue des Nations. Seen from the new Alexandre III. bridge, the
spectacle was as fairy-like as a
stage setting. Close beside, at the left, were the palaces of the
different nations, each one showing its characteristic
architecture, and all being of an astonishing diversity. To the
right were the pavilion of the city of Paris and the enormous
greenhouses, and in the distance Old Paris, so picturesquely
constructed by Robida. In short, exotic edifices and scintillating cupolas arose
with unparalleled profusion, creating in the heart of Paris a
veritable city of dreams and illusion. The most distant countries
sent their art treasures or the marvels of their industry. The
number of visitors was 51,000,000, and the personages of mark included the Shah of Persia, the
King of Sweden, the King of
the Belgians and the King of Greece, all of whom were successively
the guests of France. On the 22nd of September 22.000 mayors
accepted the invitation to the banquet offered in their honour by
President Loubet, and thus solemnly affirmed their Republican
faith. This admirably organized banquet was spread in the Tuileries
Gardens. The exhibition of 'goo, a brilliant epilogue of the closing century, was a grand
manifestation of universal concord, of the union of peoples by art,
science, industry, all branches of human genius. (DE B.) The
bibliography of the history of Paris is immense, and it must
suffice here, so far as authorities on the medieval period are
concerned, to refer to the long list of works, &c., given by Ulysse
Chevalier in his Repertoire des sources historiques du
moyen age, topo-bibliographi (Montbeliard, 1903), pp.
2267-2290. See also Lacombe, Bibliographie parisienne, tableaux
de mceurs, 1600-1880 (Paris, 1886), and Pessard, Nouveau
diet. hist. de Paris (1904). Of general works may be mentioned
specially J. C. Dulaure, Hist. physique, civile et morale de
Paris (1821; new ed. continued by Leynadier and Roquette,
1874; Paul Robiquet, Hist. municipale de Paris, up to
Henry IV. (1880-1904); J. Lebeuf, Hist. de la ville et de tout
le diocese de Paris (Paris, 1754-1758; new ed. revised and
enlarged, by H. Cocheris, 1863-1867); and the Hist. generale de
Paris, published under the authority of the municipality, of
which vol. xxxix. was issued in 1906. Important special works on
later periods are. W. A. Schmidt, Pariser Zustande weihrend der
Revolutionszeit, 1789-1800 (Jena, 1874-1876; French trans.,
Paris pendant la
revolution, by P. Viollet, 1880-1894), and Tableaux de la
revolution francaise (Leipzig, 1867-1870); F. Aulard,
Collection de documents relatifs a l'hist. de Paris pendant la
revolution (1899-1903); Lanzac de Laborie, Paris sous
Napoleon (1905); Simond, Paris de 1800 a. 1900
(1902); Cilleuls, Hist. de l'administration parisienne au xixme
siecle (1900).